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CAPTURING 
THE COLONEL 




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S. W. BRANDOM 




S. W. Brandom, B. A., LL. B. 



Capturing the Colonel 

and Other Themes 



V. W Rr 



BY 

Hon. S^W. Brandom, B. A., LL. B. 



Copyright 1914 
By S. W. BRANDOM 



Press of the 

W. B. Rogers Printing Company 

Trenton, Missouri 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY 



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HON. S. W. BRANDOM, B. A., LL. B. 



S. W. Brandom was born in a log cabin in Grundy 
county, Missouri, less than a mile from the east line 
of Daviess county. His boyhood days were passed in 
Grundy and Daviess counties. His father, Charles 
P. Brandom, and his grandfather, William Brandom, 
came to Daviess county, Missouri, in 1856. In 1862, 
Charles P. Brandom settled on a farm in Grundy 
county, and there the subject of this sketch was born. 
He lived on the farm with his parents until he was 
fifteen years old, working on the farm in summer, 
and attending the country school in winter. The 
time came when he wanted to go to college. His fath- 
er told him that if he wanted to go to school any 
more, he would have to earn the money himself and 
pay his own way. Therefore, with his father's ap- 
proval, he left home at the age of fifteen years, and 
began the struggle for a college education. He com- 
pleted the regular college course, and the music 
course, and later, took some science courses at the 
Missouri State University, and the course in Law and 
Equity at the "Washington and Lee University. He 
taught school for a number of years, and has a First 
Grade or Life State certificate to teach in the schools 

M 20 1914 

^CI.A371440 
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AUTOBIOGRAPHY 3 

of Missouri. He has practiced law for many years, 
was admitted to the bar in Grundy county, and after- 
ward secured license to practice law in Kansas, and 
also obtained license from the Supreme Court of 
Colorado. He was the representative from Daviess 
county in the Forty-fourth General Assembly of Mis- 
souri. He professed faith in Christ, and united with 
the church at Trenton, Mo., in 1890, and was ordain- 
ed to the full work of the Gospel Ministry, at Galla- 
tin, Mo., May 31st, 1907. 



CONTENTS 



CAPTURING THE COLONEL, AND 
OTHER THEMES 

ADDRESS PACE 

AUTOBIOGRAPHY 2 

I. POSSIBILITIES 5 

II. IS IT WELL WITH THEE 30 

III. HOW SHALL WE ESCAPE 47 

IV. THE SOUTH WIND 65 

V. KINDNESS 76 

VI. SOWING AND REAPING 89 

VII. CAPTURING THE COLONEL 100 

VIII. SOWING AND REAPING 113 

IX. HOME 131 



POSSIBILITIES 



A Lecture Delivered in the Church* to the Graduating 
Class of a High School. The Church was Densely 
Crowded, and Excellent Order Prevailed, With 
Close Attention, from beginning to end. 

By Hon. S. W. Brandom, A. B., LL. B. 



Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen: — 

I am pleased to be with you. However, it is only 
by a tight squeeze that I am here. Some years ago, 
I visited the State Normal School at Cape Girardeau, 
Mo., and while there, I heard of a young lady who 
became alarmed about her grades. She feared that 
she had failed in the examination in some of her 
studies. Finally, one morning, one of the teachers 
told her that she had passed, but that it was a tight 
squeeze. She promptly answered, "Oh, well, I al- 
ways did like a tight squeeze, any how." 

I am delighted with the people that I have met 
since I reached your beautiful city a few hours ago. 
I am favorably impressed with the beauty of your 
women, and I have also observed the ugliness of your 
men. But I never did like a two faced man, and I 
am satisfied that there are no two faced men here 

* At Tina, Mo. 5 



6 POSSIBILITIES 

tonight ; for if any of you men sitting before me had 
two faces, you certainly would have worn the other 
face. 

I am here, and I have no doubt that I am the most 
concerned of any present about this lecture. A Sun- 
day School teacher asked her class who was most 
concerned when Absalom was caught up by the hair. 
A small boy promptly answered, "Why, Absalom, 
of course." And of course I am most concerned 
about this lecture. 

Very often, a man in public life will do his duty, 
as his judgment directs, without knowing whether 
his labors will be approved or condemned by the 
people he serves. But all of us should learn some 
things by experience, and improve as a result of our 
mistakes; like the wife of a dying man. The hus- 
band lay dying, and said to his faithful companion, 
"Now wife, after I am gone, I hope you won't marry 
again the first chance you get." She promptly an- 
swered, "You needn't worry about that. I'm going 
to be more particular next time." 

Possibly I ought to tell you the subject of my lec- 
ture before I go any farther, for pretty soon I won't 
need to tell you. A woman said to the doctor, "Why 
are you not willing to wait till tomorrow to operate 
on my husband?" The Dr. answered, "Because, if 
he keeps on improving, by tomorrow he won't need 
operating on." 

My subject is "Possibilities." My text is Mark, 



POSSIBILITIES 7 

9:23, "All things are possible to him that believes." 
(Worrell's Translation.) 

Faith and belief are regarded as interchangeable 
words, and so are often said to go together. But I 
believe in faith and works going together. A man 
who is strong on one and not the other, is a one sided, 
a lopsided man. An old colored man and his two 
boys were going home, and came to a swollen stream. 
The old darky and his oldest boy were each riding 
a good horse, and the younger boy was riding a mule. 
The old darky rode into the water, and was soon on 
the other side. The older boy, like his father, was 
also soon safely across the swollen stream. The 
younger boy who was on the mule went in last. The 
mule began plunging and rearing, and the rider slid 
off. But as he struck the water, he grabbed hold of 
the mule's tail, and held on for dear life. His father 
began shouting to the boy, "Trust in de Lawd! 
Trust in de Lawd!" while the older boy began shout- 
ing to his brother, "Hold on to dat mule's tail ! Hold 
on to dat mule's tail!" The old darky was strong 
on faith, and his oldest boy was strong on works. 
But the younger of the two boys was where it was 
necessary for him to be strong on both. 

Now, passing from this little jocularity, I want to 
remind the audience that certain duties of life must 
be performed, and that the most faithful men will 
meet sharp and violent criticism. A Grecian senator, 
named Ctesiphon, once proposed, in the Grecian sen- 



8 POSSIBILITIES 

ate, to give Demosthenes a golden wreath or crown, 
as a recognition of his excellent services to the 
State. For that act Ctesiphon was indicted, charged 
with high crimes and misdemeanors, and was brought 
to trial before the jury of five hundred citizens. 
While Ctesiphon was the nominal defendant, the 
real purpose of the prosecution was to humiliate 
Demosthenes. For the charge against Ctesiphon was 
based on the claim that Demosthenes had done noth- 
ing worthy of praise. Aeschines, the most powerful 
enemy and opponent of Demosthenes, conducted the 
prosecution, while Demosthenes himself defended. 
It was in that trial that Demosthenes delivered his 
famous oration, entitled, "On The Crown," which 
is universally recognized as the world's masterpiece 
of eloquence. 

It appeared that when Demosthenes rendered the 
services to the State, he had no reward in view, ex- 
cept that which naturally follows integrity and 
fidelity in the performance of duty. At the conclu- 
sion of the great trial, Ctesiphon was acquitted, and 
the character of Demosthenes was publicly vindicat- 
ed. This incident, in Grecian history, shows that the 
brightest laurels ever placed on a human brow have 
been gained by integrity and fidelity in the perform- 
ance of duty, without any prospect or anticipation 
of a special reward. But a merited token of ap- 
proval should not be denied for faithful service in 
any honorable pursuit. The Diploma, which each 



POSSIBILITIES 9 

member of the class receives at graduation, is the 
least thing of value which the graduate has obtained 
from the school. While the diploma is a proper 
token of the approval of the Board of Education, it 
is something that can be lost or destroyed, or sus- 
pended from a hook on one of the walls of a room, 
and therefore cannot always be present with the re- 
cipient of the token. But the more priceless jewel 
of an up to date education, being personified, says 
to its possessor, as Euth said to Naomi: "Entreat 
me not to leave thee, or to return from following 
after thee; for whither thou goest, I will go; and 
where thou lodgest, I will lodge. Thy people shall 
be my people, and thy God my God. Where thou 
diest, will I die, and there will I be buried. The 
Lord do so to me and more also, if aught but death 
part thee and me." As in the direct line of descent 
from Ruth, there followed the greatest benefactions 
to the human race, so I hope that the education of 
this elass will be the source of innumerable blessings, 
not only to the members of the class, but also to the 
community, and to the world. At the commence- 
ment occasion, the sunshine of hope lights up the 
prospect of the future, like the sun of day in the 
early morning illuminating the material landscape. 
Some years ago, while on the plains of Colorado, 
I witnessed the dawn of a particularly beautiful 
morning, and the magnificence of a glorious evening. 
Gray streaks of light shooting across the sky above 



10 POSSIBILITIES 

the eastern horizon, were the signals hung out, or 
the heralds advancing, to announce that Aurora, 
the beautiful Goddess of the morning, had arisen 
from her oriental couch, dressed herself in gorgeous 
splendor, mounted her golden chariot, and had 
started on her journey, to carry sunshine to the flow- 
ers, and kiss away the dew drops which still clung 
to their petals. The wonderful array of nature was 
thrilling and inspiring. In that great panorama, I 
saw the vegetation covering the plain, every sprig, 
blade and petal glistening with dewdrops that glow- 
ed with more that silvern beauty in the sunshine. 
I viewed with admiration the apparently limitless 
prairie, overspread with a velvety carpet of Buffalo 
grass, each sprig of which was crowned with a dew- 
drop, that, in the glowing sunlight, sparkled like a 
silver bead. I noticed also the abundance and vari- 
ety of the wild flowers, which, reflecting every color 
of the rainbow, as they waved to and fro and danced 
in the resplendent sunlight, gladdened the eye at 
every turn. At the close of that day, while Vesper, 
Goddess of the evening, was whispering her prayers, 
the mountains in the west appeared like a natural 
fortification limiting the plain, and their peaks seem- 
ed like fairies surmounting the fortifications of time, 
and pausing for a last look at the rapidly fading 
day, before raising the drawbridge and hoisting the 
portcullis. And, for a moment, while the setting 
sun seemed to rest peacefully on the snowy cushions 



POSSIBILITIES 11 

of the mountain summits, it required but a little 
effort of the imagination to think of the golden 
fruitage of all our earthly aspirations, like the glow- 
ing sun, resting in majesty and splendor on the 
mountains' crests. 

The recollection of that day, reminds me of the 
commencement occasion. Life, like a beautiful land- 
scape, stretches out before you, and you can almost 
feel on your cheek the gentle touch of the sweet per- 
fumed zephyrs flitting thru the air, wafted from the 
golden fruitage of coming victories. The coolness of 
the morning breezes of youthful ambitions refresh- 
es the spirit, and the abundance and variety of the 
wild flowers of pleasant anticipations and of doubt- 
ful realization reflect all the beautiful colors of the 
rainbow, as they wave to and fro and dance in the 
repslendent sunlight, till you can almost taste the 
ambrosial sweetness of the nectar distilled from the 
choicest blossoms of future achievements. While, 
also, the dew drops of doubtful fruition, clinging to 
the petals of the roses of aspiration, sparkle with 
more than silvern beauty, until they are kissed away 
by the sunbeams of hope, as that luminous body, like 
the golden circle of the sun, rises higher and higher 
toward the zenith. And beyond this ethereal land- 
scape and hope illuminated plain, are the mountains, 
over whose towering summits the members of the 
class expect to climb. To cross the landscape and 
reach the mountains in Colorado, I had to pass many 



12 POSSIBILITIES 

unknown chasms, penetrate some deep and dark 
canons, and surmount innumerable obstacles. And 
just so, to cross the landscape of life that stretches 
out before the class at the commencement occasion, 
it will be necessary to pass over many unknown 
chasms, penetrate some gloomy canons, and sur- 
mount innumerable obstacles. You cannot fly over 
this landscape. The plain must be traversed step by 
step. Hope may insure you wings after you nave 
climbed the distant mountains, but, on this side of 
their towering summits, you must listen in vain for 
the faintest rustle of a wing. 

It would be unreasonable to expect every day to 
be as pleasant for the class as the commencement 
day, or as cheerful and bright as a clear May morn- 
ing. But in your gradual progress thru the grades 
in the school, I hope you have at times experienced 
just enough of the sadness resulting from a tempor- 
ary disappointment, that you will not give over to 
despair when your dark days of trial shall come. 
One of the heroes of The Iliad chased his adversary 
three times around the walls of Troy, but finally 
bore away the palm of victory, as he returned to 
the camp with the body of his opponent dead and 
dangling between his chariot wheels. Whenever the 
members of this class engage in any conflict for the 
right, my desire is that they may be thus successful 
in the final issue of every battle. 

Perhaps one of the severest trials for any one is 



POSSIBILITIES 13 

the disappointment resulting from the treachery of 
false friends. Julius Ceasar expressed the agony of 
such a trial in the hour of his assassination, when he 
said, "Et tu, Brute!" "Thou too, Brutus!" Al- 
most every one has to experience the anguish of dis- 
covering treachery on the part of some that were es- 
teemed as friends. The false friend is a friend just 
because he has an ax to grind. When he finds he 
can not get you to grind his ax, he ceases at once to 
be a friend. There is a clear line of demarcation 
between the true friend and the false friend. The 
false friend will exaggerate your mistakes, and mag- 
nify your natural weaknesses, while the true friend 
will make allowances for some of your mistakes, ex- 
cuse your natural weaknesses, and spread the mantle 
of charity over your faults. When you are under 
the cross fire of abuse and criticism, your false 
friends will forsake you, like rats escaping from a 
burning building, or running from a sinking ship. 
But, at such a time, your true friends will stick all 
the closer to your standard. Your true friends ap- 
pear to have enough sense to know that all human 
beings possess human and erring natures, and hence 
they do not expect perfection in a friend. The fact 
is that while we continue to dwell on this earth, 
which is a star domed chariot, rolling through space, 
curtained with a magnificent drapery of clouds, and 
carpeted with fragrant and variegated flowers, and 
while in the same chair with us, there is an ever 



14 POSSIBILITIES 

present and inseparable human and erring nature, 
with so many environments of a character calculated 
to confuse, deceive, and even blunt our moral senses* 
and associated as we constantly are with others, who, 
like ourselves, all possess human and erring natures, 
and witnessing, as we necessarily are, an ever vary- 
ing and changing panorama of immorality and world- 
liness, it is plain that none of us, while we live here 
in our present environment, will ever be able to 
approximate in perfection the life and character of 
Him Who was tempted as we are tempted, and Who 
never sinned. No true friend ever expects you to be 
as perfect as though you lived in that favored age, 
when "the wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and 
the leopard shall lie down with the kid, and the calf 
and the young lion and the fatling together, and a 
little child shall lead them." Toward the true 
friend, no one should ever be justly liable to the 
charge of ingratitude. Therefore you should never 
be unworthy of friendship by any manifestation of 
ingratitude toward any one who has proved himself 
to be a true friend. However, a friend has no right, 
in the guise of a friend, to presume to be your boss. 
Such a one will claim you have betrayed him every 
time you fail to do his bidding, without regard to 
your own conscience in the matter. A friend is not 
a boss, and conversely, a boss is not a friend. 

Human achievement is limited by nature, ham- 
pered by circumstances, and modified by environ- 



POSSIBILITIES 15 

ment. Hence, any one who plans a great work, or 
aspires to eminence in any pursuit, should make his 
ascent so gradual, like the successive promotions in 
a graded school, that each advanced step will be a 
stepping stone and foundation for the next and high- 
er one. To do otherwise, would be as indiscreet as 
for a student in practical mechanics to plan the con- 
struction of a locomotive engine, without taking into 
consideration the resistances of the atmosphere, of 
friction, and of gravitation. And no one should at- 
tempt to soar to aerial heights until his machinery 
has been carefully tested, and his muscles have been 
hardened by use and experience. Otherwise, like 
the fabled Icarus, he may soar so near the sun that 
the wax on his wings will melt, and his consequent 
fall will be destructive. 

In every avocation, the quick tempered person 
must learn to restrain the impulses of anger. A 
little girl, in a Presbyterian family, was having 
trouble in her play. Her dolly's clothing wouldn't 
fit, and finally she threw the clothes across the room, 
and exclaimed, "I wish I belonged to a family that 
sweared I" If she grows up to be a good representa- 
tive of a good Presbyterian family, she will have to 
restrain the natural impulses of anger. 

Judgment, or intuitive and acquired knowledge, is 
of more practical value in life than the untrained 
genius of intellectual brilliancy. Hence, the great- 
est results are often obtained, not by action, but by 



16 POSSIBILITIES 

self restraint and repose. The poor Roman soldier 
of Pompeii, stationed up on the mountain side, stand- 
ing firm at his post, consciously facing death, but 
without a tremor, a twitching of the muscles, or 
other indication of an impulse to flee, although being 
buried by the hot waves of burning lava which 
flow in torrents over the mountain's brow, tells the 
Roman story in grander language than the ruins of 
the Coliseum. And the greatness of any nation is 
not to be learned from its statues in marble, granite 
or bronze, nor from its vast feats of architecture, 
but from the heroic character of its people. It is 
easy to resent an insult with a blow, but harder ta 
bear ridicule, or suffer an intentionel slight in silence, 
than to charge at the cannon's mouth. But the 
greatest force of character is often manifested by 
silence under the goad of ridicule, or intentional 
slight. However, one whose soul is animated with 
some high purpose, can afford to be silent, and await 
the final issue to bring him his vindication. Many a 
heroic soul, like a lovely and fragrant flower, blos- 
soming on the broad expanse of an unpeopled wil- 
derness, may live, bloom, and shed its fragrance on 
the undulations of the roving winds, and die un- 
known. While, on the other hand, some obscure 
person, by a single act,, may prove himself more 
worthy a marble shaft or bronze statue than many 
vaunted heroes that the world has been pleased to 
honor with eulogiums of praise. That solitary 



POSSIBILITIES 17 

horseman of Johnstown, galloping through the Cone- 
maugh valley, spurring his steed to its utmost speed, 
.and shouting at the top of his voice, "To the hills! 
To the hills for your lives ! ' ' and hurrying on, and 
on, giving the words of warning to the imperiled 
occupants of the valley, until the pursuing flood of 
seething waters overtook him, caught him in their 
embrace, and hushed his voice forever, by that feat 
of courageous daring, proved himself more worthy a 
place among the world's heroes than Cambronne 
when he shouted to the conquering British, "The 
guard dies; it never surrenders!" 

Two of the purposes of historical studies in the 
schools are to arouse the soul to a just appreciation 
of its own possibilities, and, by the study of the lives 
of those who lived in the past to train the soul to 
restrain any inordinate and selfish ambition. One 
example is peculiarly appropriate for both of these 
purposes. In the year 1779, at the military school 
of Brienne, there appeared a lad, not quite ten years 
old, who desired to matriculate in that institution. 
He was admitted. He was poor, and suffered much 
from the rudeness of his fellow students. But he 
studied diligently, took a special delight in the study 
of Caesar's Commentaries of the wars in Gaul, and 
the historical writings of Plutarch and Arrian. Sev- 
enteen years after matriculating in the military 
school of Brienne, on May tenth, 1796, he astonished 
the world by his famous passage of the bridge at 



18 POSSIBILITIES 

Lodi, swept by the Austrian cannon, and there he 
began that wonderful career which made him mas- 
ter of continental Europe. Two years later, he con- 
quered Alexandria, and fought the battle of the 
Pyramids, during his Egyptian campaign. Two 
years later, or in 1800, when he started on a second 
invasion of Italy, with 36000 men, some of his offi- 
cers told him that it was impossible to cross the Alps 
at that season of the year. But the determination 
and indomitable will of the great leader was revealed 
by his answer, "There shall be no Alps!" The life 
of Napoleon Bonaparte thus shows the incalculable 
possibilities of any boy who will apply himself per- 
sistently to his studies; while the graves and bones of 
the French soldiers, scattered the length of Europe, 
from Malaga to Moscow T , and the closing scenes of his 
life on the Island of St. Helena, reveal how the in- 
ordinate and selfish ambition of an irreligious man, 
can transform the beauty and grandeur of an Epic, 
into the dirge and pathos of a tragedy. Napoleon 
was the incarnation of energy, military greatness, 
and selfish disregard of the rights of nations and in- 
dividuals. His star arose on the morning of the nine- 
teenth century, and there it stood like a frightful 
comet on the horizon, and kept rising higher and 
higher. It became a blazing sun of glory at Auster- 
litz, but went down behind the lowering clouds at 
Waterloo. Napoleon drew his sword, dipped it in 
the best heroic blood of Europe, and wrote his name 



POSSIBILITIES 19 

high on the sky of fame, and in letters of blood. 
But his selfish ambition met disappointment at last. 
He was a prisoner on the Island of St. Helena, where 
the salty waves of the sea beat against the rock 
bound coast. He became insane at last. In his de- 
lirium he arose, and once more led the armies of 
France. Once more he engaged in war. He was 
again at Lodi and Austerlitz, and in sight of the 
Pyramids. Again he was the leader in the strife. 
He exclaimed, "I am still head of the army of 
France!", and fell back dead. And tonight, on the 
banks of the Seine, there stands his magnificent 
tomb, his battle flags about him, and his marshall 
sleeping near, where, if alive, he could give com- 
mand. And there are the foot falls of those, from 
the four corners of the earth, who go there to honor 
his memory. There sleeps the mortal remains of 
the greatest military genius in all history. And in 
his history, we read the tragedy of his brilliant 
career. Misguided energy, and misdirected ability 
end in ruin and the grave. 

No professional man has anything of very great 
value in his calling, until he has it by culture. Peo- 
ple may prate about the born doctor or the born 
lawyer. But no lawyer knows how to prepare a 
brief or draw a pleading until he has learned it, and 
no doctor was ever born with the knowledge neces- 
sary to diagnose a case either of smallpox or 
measles. 



20 POSSIBILITIES 

When Grant accepted the sword of Lee, and re- 
ceived the surrender of an army, he was praised as 
a conquerer. His circuit of the world was a con- 
tinual ovation. His hearty welcome by the Queen, 
his arm in arm walk with Bismarck, his passing 
under the Giant Arch at Jerusalem, his return by the 
golden gate, and, later, his tour through Old Mexico, 
were replete with honors commensurate with the re- 
nown of a monarch. It has been said that Grant 
was a born military leader. But the fact remains, 
that, without his education and military training, 
Grant never would have been placed in command of 
the United States Army. There seems to be a spirit 
among some people, to take delight in the thought, 
that whatever is pleasing and excellent, is of spon- 
taneous growth, requiring no expenditure of labor 
in its development. Of course, many objects that 
gladden the eye are of spontaneous growth. The 
wild flowers in their gorgeous splendor, the native 
forests with their luxuriant foliage, and the native 
grasses that cover the prairies, are all of spontaneous 
growth. But the same lavjphness of spontaniety in 
nature, is not found in the elements of human char- 
acter and knowledge, which are the essentials of 
success in any business or professional pursuit. In 
fact, if such instances exist at all, they are so rare 
that they should be classed as exotics, which bloom 
but once in a century. 

I have referred, incidentally, to some of the 



POSSIBILITIES 21 

achievements of noted men. As there are some ladies 
in this graduating class, it is certainly appropriate 
to refer to some of the achievements of women. Much 
has been written during the last quarter of a century 
about woman's sphere. I shall not attempt to dis- 
cuss any of these effusions of brain or pen. It would 
be a task for which I have neither the time nor the 
inclination. But I will say that woman's sphere, 
like man's sphere, is in the path of duty. In the 
first place, I will admit that it is as natural for men 
to seek the society of women, as for sparks to fly 
upward. I have read somewhere of a man who had 
some disagreement with his young wife, and although 
they had a little boy only a few weeks old, they sep- 
arated. The father kept the child, and kept him on 
a ranch in the west. The boy received some train- 
ing to fit him for the responsible duties of citizen- 
ship, but was kept away from all womankind, until 
after he attained his majority. Soon after he be- 
came of age, his father took him to Kansas City to 
see some of city life. Once in the city, the boy saw 
many beautiful women, and asked his father what 
those things were with flowers on their heads. The 
father's early difficulty with his wife had embittered 
him toward all women, and, therefore, he answered 
his boy by saying, "They are little devils." After 
the boy had been taken over a large portion of the 
city, the father said to him, "Now, son, I'll buy you 
any thing you want." The boy promptly said: 



22 POSSIBILITIES 

" Father, buy me a little devil." 

History abounds with achievements of women. 
The enthusiasm of a poor peasant girl aroused the 
disheartened French people to raise the siege of 
Orleans, and to recover much lost territory. Thus 
the Maid of Orleans, Joan of Arc, was the forceful 
spirit that stirred the Frenchmen of her time to 
their greatest efforts, during the Hundred Years 
War. 

The superior understanding, and sympathetic na- 
ture, of Queen Isabelle of Spain, enabled Christopher 
Columbus to prove to the world his theory of the 
rotundity of the earth, besides giving to civilization 
a new continent. During the Civil War, no man 
showed any truer bravery than the artless little 
Alabama girl, who was conducting General Forest 
thru a dangerous passage, and, when the enemy fired 
a volley upon him, instinctively spread her skirts, 
and exclaimed, "Get behind me." Many of the best 
writers of this generation, and of the preceding gen- 
eration, are women. In the field of literature, wom- 
en have given to the world some of the best things 
ever written. Women have gained unfading laurels 
as writers of books and magazine articles. Every 
one of us who can justly lay claim to true manhood, 
has a species of reverence for women. Those of us 
among men, who have a spark of nobleness in our- 
selves, have a sort of instinct of nature that woman 
is purer and nobler than man, and we respect her 



POSSIBILITIES 23 

and trust her somehow as we trust in the Provi- 
dence of God. And in some way, women have found 
it out. Some time ago, a woman said to her hus- 
band, "You must admit that women's minds are 
cleaner than men's." Her husband said, "Well, of 
course; and they ought to be cleaner; they change 
them so much oftener." Leave woman out of books, 
and literature loses its_charm. Take woman from 
the home, and nothing is left but a crumbling casket 
without the jewel. Take her influence from any* 
man, and all his earthly hopes, like the fruits of the 
Dead Sea, turn to ashes on his lips. Take woman 
out of history, and all the records of all the ages 
that have marked the progress of morality and civi« 
lization, at once become the poorest of fictions, false, 
valueless, fabrications and lies. There never waged 
a battle royal, that the influence of woman did not 
nerve and strengthen the contestants in the strife. 
Without the influence of woman in the age of chiv- 
alry, knighthood never would have attained its 
flower. We now live in a practical age of unpre- 
cedented activity, and woman heroically bears her 
proportionate share of the burdens of life. In a well 
balanced life, the measure of success should equal 
the measure of the effort. For work counts more 
than natural ability. Genius, that sudden electrical 
flash, mentioned in certain verdant effusions of im- 
aginative literature, may reach the pinnacle of fame 
at a single bound. But true genius, like the keen 



24 POSSIBILITIES 

razor blade, is of excellent material and superior 
finish. Genius, like crude raw material, is improved 
by art. The sudden electrical flash of genius so 
often finds a lodgment in a body contaminated with 
indolence, that it usually fails in the race of a life. 
A careful view of the most successful men, in the 
various professions, will reveal more studious plod- 
ders than men of original brilliancy. To know just 
what to do and when to do it, requires a sixth sense, 
derived from native ability, combined with long 
study, ripened by experience. This cannot be gained 
from books alone. It requires labor, observation, 
and experience, and requires years of training to 
bring it to its proper rounded development. Very 
few ever bring it to anything near perfection. Its 
practical value is to help you to know what to do 
next. Sime people possess this power naturally in 
a large measure. For instance, some years ago, 
Superintendent Greenwood, of Kansas City, and a 
farmer, and one lady, were riding on a street car in 
Kansas City. Superintendent Greenwood w and the 
lady were at a considerable distance from the farm- 
er. In faet, the lady was at one end of the ear, and 
the farmer was at the other end. As the car ap- 
proached the loop, the professor and the lady held 
tight to the car seat, to avoid being thrown out. The 
farmer evidently was not familiar with the loop, 
and so did not take the precaution necessary to avoid 
trouble. As the car swung around the loop, the 



POSSIBILITIES 25 

farmer \vas thrown from his place clear to the other 
end of the car, and lit in the young lady's lap. He 
very promptly arose, made a polite bow, and apolo- 
gized by saying: "You must excuse me madam, for 
my father was a lap lander." He possessed the 
sixth sense in a very large degree, for he knew what 
to do next. 

Nothing in this world is fixed and stationary. We 
must either go forward, or we must go backward. 
As the rain that falls on the hill tops, cuts a channel 
in the rocks, or plows a furrow through the valley, on 
its way to the sea, so we must push forward to reach 
the sea of our aim in life, or else, like the back water 
from the rushing river, we will be forced into some 
stagnant pool, instead of going on to the sea. By 
your own effort, you must avoid the stagnant pool, 
and become as the rushing river, if you ever expect 
to reach the sea. 

A man of vacillating convictions and feeble will 
power, is easily discouraged by every chasm that 
stretches itself across his pathway, and every moun- 
tain that rises up to turn him out of his course. But 
the man of deep convictions, and strong will, pushes 
steadily forward with unwavering determination, 
bridges the chasms, tunnels the mountains, and finds 
some way to overcome every obstacle that impedes 
his onward march. 

I WILL is the sentiment that brings success. I 
WILL is the spirit that gained our independence 



26 POSSIBILITIES 

from England, and later, in 1812, put a stop to the 
suppressment of American sailors. I WILL is the 
spirit that animated Captain Lawrence, when, with 
his failing breath, he said, " Don't give up the ship." 
I WILL is the spirit that led Jefferson to assert that 
the administration must show its teeth, in order to 
consummate the Louisiana purchase. I WILL is the 
spirit that has extended our country's borders from 
the Atlantic to the Pacific, and from the Lakes to 
the Gulf. I WILL is the spirit that drove Spain 
out of Cuba and Porto Rico, and severed her last 
hold on the Western Hemisphere forever. The same 
spirit of I WILL has planted our starry banner on 
the islands of the distant seas, until our beautiful 
flag is now daily kissed by every oceanic breeze. I 
WILL has established the foundations of free and 
popular governments that made tyrants tremble on 
their throne. I WILL has made deserts bloom as 
the rose, built up the merchant marine, opened up 
commercial highways across land and sea, and 
connected the hemispheres with ocean cables. 

With a properly directed will, combined with 
fidelity and politeness, success ought to grow T natur- 
ally like the oak tree, with new branches extending 
from every limb, rending asunder the rocks that 
cramp its roots, and defying the whirlwinds that 
twist and strain its gnarling branches. And after 
each hurricane has passed over, it presents uplifted 
arms toward Heaven, and receives with gladness 



POSSIBILITIES 27 

every fresh ray of sunshine that kisses its terminal 
twigs. 

Affability should temper the hand and control the 
tongue. It was the haughtiness of Roscoe Conkling 
that led his enemies to ride over him in the moment 
of their triumph. It was the sociability of Marma- 
duke that made him a possible candidate, secured 
him the nomination, and achieved his election as 
governor of our own great state. It was the bitter 
sarcasm of Ingalls, the wasp of the Senate, that blew 
him out of Congress, and dropped him in his Atchi- 
son home, before he entered the lecture field. The 
affability of Garfield gave him a leadership which 
terminated in the Presidency. The politeness of 
Robert B. Lee made it easy for Grant to hand back 
the extended sword, with the words, "It could not 
be worn by a braver man." 

These examples are full of instruction. Strive to 
find that golden mean, which combines affability 
with power, manifests strength without haugthiness, 
force without presumption, polish without conceit, 
and firmness without rudeness. That is a happy com- 
bination of sociability and power. Furthermore, in 
whatever you attempt, do your best, and put con- 
science into your work. Then, if it turn out well, 
you will feel that your reward is not unmerited; 
and if it turn out wrong, you may be sorrowful, but 
you will have no sharp, lingering pang of remorse. 

To the Superintendent, Principal of the High 



28 POSSIBILITIES 

School, grade teachers, and members of the graduat- 
ing class, I now remind you, that the pleasant remin- 
iscences of school room associations, like mountain 
mists hovering over the towering peaks of memory, 
will descend at night into the valley of thought, and 
after a brief stay, will be wafted away and carried 
back to the mountains, as the sunshine of new duties 
spreads over the valley. But some of the mists will 
remain in the living green of the grassy plain, and 
in the greater verdure of the delicate twigs of recol- 
lection. Some of it will be folded in leaf, bud and 
flower. The beautiful mosses of pleasure will be 
greener by the vapor's touch. It will have added 
beauty to the lillies, deepened the color in the petals 
of the apple blossoms, and increased the fragranee 
of the roses of happiness. The fruits of the harvest 
will be more luscious, and the Autumn of repose more 
comforting, as these mountain mists descend from 
the towering peaks of memory. 

Horace, the illustrious Latin poet of the Augustan 
age, in speaking of his own labors, said: "I have 
erected a monument more durable than bronze, and 
loftier than the regal structure of the Pyramids, 
which neither the corroding showier, the impotent 
North Wind, nor the flight of time is able to de- 
stroy." I entertain the hope, that the prophetic 
words of Horace, in regard to his own work, are 
equally true of the enduring monuments of human 
character which the Superintendent, Principal and 



POSSIBILITIES 29 

teachers, in cooperation with the Board of Educa- 
tion, have erected in the education of the members 
of this class. 

And now, as my mind's eye surveys the highways 
of this world, I see an unusual vision. In thought, 
I see the surface of the earth covered with a thick 
and heavy sleet or mantle of ice. I see the steep 
and precipitous hill west of Grand River, on the road 
between Edinburg and Trenton, in Grundy county, 
and the steep hill, always dangerous, is worse than 
usual on account of the thick covering of ice. I see 
a large fat woman about half way down the slope 
of the steepest section of the hill. She is very cau- 
tiously walking down the hill. Near the top of that 
steepest section, I see another pedestrian, a medium 
sized man, and he is also carefully descending the 
slope. Suddenly his feet slip from under him, and 
he is precipitated violently down the declivity. He 
quickly overtakes the fat woman, his feet dash 
against her heels, and she sits down on him with a 
deadening thud. With lightning like swiftness they 
slide down together. At the foot of the hill, they 
come to a sudden stop, whereupon the man says, 
"Madam, you'll have to get off here, this is as far 
as I go." And now, ladies and gentlemen, I'll let 
you off here, for this is as far as I go. Thanking 
you for your kind attention, I wish you Good-night. 



II 
IS IT WELL WITH THEE? 

S. W.BBANDOM 

Text, 2 Kings, 4 :26. "Is it well with thee? Is it 
well with thy husband? Is it well with the child !" 

A few miles from Jezreel, four miles from Shechem, 
eight miles from Tabor, and about fifty miles north of 
Jerusalem, there once stood the ancient city of Shun- 
em. The location was one of the most fertile and pic- 
turesque spots on the globe. It was surrounded by 
orchards and olive groves, and fields of waving grain. 
The land was rich in babbling springs and purling 
brooks. In this favored city there once lived a wom- 
an who was noted in her day. The prophet Elisha 
was accustomed to pass by her home on his way from 
Mt. Carmel to the school of the prophets at Jericho. 
Something about him attracted the notice of the fam- 
ous woman, for, one day she spoke about him to her 
husband, as we find in 2 Kings, 4:9-10. "And she 
said unto her husband, behold now, I perceive that 
this is a holy man of God, that passeth by us con- 
tinually. Let us make, I pray thee, a little chamber 
on the wall ; and let us set for him there a bed, and 
a table, and a seat, and a candlestick; and it shall 
be, when he cometh to us, that he shall turn in 
thither." 

30 



IS IT WELL WITH THEE 31 

Evidently her suggestion pleased her husband, 
for the room was built, and furnished, as we have 
further account in 2 Kings, 4:11. "And it fell on a 
day, that he came thither, and he turned into the 
chamber and lay there." 

The hospitality of that home was freely extended 
to the man of God, and the friendship that began so 
auspiciosuly continued. Some years after the inci- 
dent already related there was a boy in that home, 
the only child, and he went out into the field where 
his father and others were harvesting. The hot Ori- 
ental sun beat down upon him, and he cried out, 
"My head, my head!" In fact, he had a sunstroke. 
His father said, "Carry him to his mother." "When 
the child was taken to his mother, there occurred 
a very sad event. 2 Kings, 4:20-21. "He sat on 
her knees till noon, and then died. And she went 
up and laid him on the bed of the man of God, and 
shut the door upon him, and went out." 

Doubtless she was broken hearted, for her only 
child had just died. To whom could she go? We 
find that she went to her husband, and after they 
conversed awhile, one of the men was sent to saddle 
a beast, and presently she got on the beast. 2 Kings, 
4:24. "And she said to her servant, drive and go 
forward. ' ' 

Down at Shunem was the dead child. On the 
road from Shunem to Mt. Carmel was the broken 
hearted mother, on the beast led by the servant, 



32 IS IT WELL WITH THEE 

gradually approaching the mountain. Up yonder 
on the mountain side was the man of God. Elisha 
saw her coming, and called his servant, G-ehazi, and 
spoke to him, as stated in 2 Kings, 4:25-26, saying, 
"Behold, yonder is the Shunemite; run, I pray thee, 
now to meet her, and say unto her, Is it well with 
thee? Is it well with thy husband? Is it well with 
thy child ?" 

Gehazi obeyed, and after he greeted the woman in 
the words that Elisha had commanded him, the 
woman answered, according to the oriental manner 
of salutation, " It is well. ' ' See 2 Kings, 4 :27. " And 
when she came to the man of God to the hill, she 
caught hold of his feet. And Gehazi came near to 
thrust her away; but the man of God said, Let her 
alone, for her soul is vexed within her ; and Jehovah 
hath hid it from me, and hath not told me." 

After the woman revealed her burden of sorrow 
to the prophet, Elisha spoke to Gehazi, (2 Kings, 
4:29), saying, "Take my staff in thy hand and go 
thy way : if thou meet any man, salute him not ; and 
if any salute thee, answer him not again : and lay 
my staff upon the face of the child." 

But the heart broken mother would not let the 
prophet off so easily. 2 Kings, 4:30-37. "And the 
mother of the child said, 'As Jehovah liveth, and 
as thy soul liveth, I will not leave thee.' And he 
arose, and followed her. And Gehazi passed on be- 
fore them, and laid the staff upon the face of the 



IS IT WELL WITH THEE 33 

child; but there was neither voice, nor hearing. 
Wherefore he returned to meet him, and told him, 
saying, 'the child is not awaked.' And when Elisha 
was come into the house, behold the child was dead, 
and laid upon his bed. He went in therefore, and 
shut the door upon them twain, and prayed unto 
Jehovah. And he went up, and lay upon the child, 
and put his mouth upon his mouth, and his eyes upon 
his eyes, and his hands upon his hands, and he 
stretched himself upon him ; and the flesh of the child 
waxed warm. Then he returned, and walked in the 
house* once to and fro; and went up, and stretched 
himself upon him : and the child sneezed seven times, 
and the child opened his eyes. And he called Grehazi, 
and said, 'Call this Shunemite.' So he called her. 
And when she was come in unto him, he said, 'Take 
up thy son.' Then she went in, and fell at his feet, 
and bowed herself to the ground; and she took up 
her son and went out." 

Doubtless her sorrow had been changed to rejoic- 
ing. There is a lesson in this incident which I want 
to bring to you this morning. So I come with the 
text, 2 Kings, 4:26. "Is it well with thee? Is it 
well with thy husband? Is it well with the child?" 

A little boy was sick unto death, and when his 
father told him that he was dying, he said, "Papa, 
I'm afraid. I'm afraid to die." And after a little 
while, he said, "Maybe I wouldn't be afraid if you'd 
prayed in our home every day, like Willie's papa 



34 IS IT WELL WITH THEE 

does." Presently he said, " Don't take me away 
out to the gravei yard to bury me, but bury me by 
the little summer house, for I'm afraid." And so 
he died. They buried him by the little summer 
house, but he died afraid. He may have been lost, 
and if lost at all, it was probably because his Papa 
didn't pray in the home every day like Willie's Papa 
did. "Is it well with the child?" 

In another home, there was a sick boy. One day 
the father went home, and his wife said to him, 
"There has been a great change in our boy since 
you left home this morning. I am afarid it is death. 
I wish you would go in and see him, for if it is 
death, I can't tell him." She was weeping as she 
told her husband. He went in, and sure enough, as 
he sat on the edge of the bed, and put his hand on 
his boy's forehead, he realized that the dews of 
death were gathering there. So he said to the sick 
boy, "My son, do you know that you are dying?" 
The boy said, "No, father, is this death I feel steal- 
ing over me?" The father answered, "Yes, my son, 
you can not live until night." The little boy smiled 
and said, "I will be with Jesus tonight, w r on't I 
father?" The father said, "Yes, my boy, you will 
be with the Savior tonight." The father turned his 
head to hide his tears; but the boy saw, and said, 
"Father, don't weep for me; when I get to Heaven, 
I will go right straight to Jesus, and I will tell Him 



IS IT WELL WITH THEE 35 

that ever since I can remember, you have tried to 
lead me to Him." 

Oh, "Is it well with the child ?" If your child 
were dying now, could he say that ever since he 
can remember, you have tried to lead him to Jesus? 
"Is it well with thee?" I want to make this text 
so personal that not one of you can go away and 
say, "The preacher did not mean me." For he does 
mean you. "Is it well with thee?" That is a ques- 
tion of personal salvation. It can not be well with 
you when the fact is, that, if the brittle thread of 
life should break now, your soul would be in Hell 
before midnight. Maybe you read the published ac- 
count of an incident that occurred some years ago 
in another state. A minister was eating his break- 
fast, when there was a knock at the door. The door 
was opened, and there stood a little crippled boy, 
about twelve years old, leaning on his crutch. His 
right limb had been taken off above the knee. He 
said to the minister, "Will you go to the jail and 
see my Papa, and pray and talk with him? They 
are going to hang him because he murdered Mamma. 
Papa was a good man, but whisky did it. He 
wouldn't have done it, if it was not for drink. There 
are four of us children, and I have to support my 
sisters by selling newspapers. And would you come 
to our house, and be there when they bring Papa 
home? The Governor says we can have him after 
they hang him." After going to the jail, the minis- 



36 IS IT WELL WITH THEE 

ter talked and prayed with the condemned criminal. 
The poor fellow said he had no recollection of killing 
his wife, and said, "Yes, whisky did it, I don't 
mind paying the penalty of the crime, but to think 
that I must leave my children to cruel charity !" 
The minister then went to the little hovel which was 
home to the family of that man. About eleven 
o'clock a wagon drove up. It was accompanied by 
some policemen, and they carried the pine box sort 
of a coffin into the house, and placed it on two old 
rickety chairs. There, crouching in the corner, 
stood the three little girls, and the crippled boy. 
They w x ere in rags. The brother, with his crutch, 
hobbled over to the pine box, and leaned over and 
kissed the cheeks of his dead father, and, weeping, 
said: "Poor Papa, whisky did it." And then, to 
his little sisters, he said, "Don't you want to come 
and kiss Papa before he gets cold?" The little sis- 
ters went over and kissed the lips of their dead 
father, and w^ept aloud, and wailed in agony and 
suffered, as if their hearts were breaking. "Is it 
well with thee? Is it well with thy husband? Is it 
well with the child?" "No, it is not well as long as 
a saloon is allowed in the town or community. It is 
not well with any community that permits a murder 
mill to run wide open, selling to men and boys a 
liquid fire, to set the brain on fire, and make of a 
loving husband and father a demon that kills his 
wife, and leaves his children defenseless and or- 



IS IT WELL WITH THEE 37 

phaned. This national shame and national crime of 
the age must be driven from our land. 

"The love of money is the root of all evil." And 
men sell liquor, and commit all sorts of crime for 
money. They take all kinds of risks for money. 
Some time ago, two men were talking, and one of 
them said that if he could have all he wanted of just 
one thing, he would take money. But there are 
some things that money will not buy. A steamer, 
returning from the Klondyke, halted at Seattle. Some 
folks walked the gang plank, and were there met by 
friends. The friends congratulated them on their 
success in the Klondike. They were a man and his 
wife. Their friends said, "We hear you have been 
very fortunate in the Klondike." They answered 
that they had three hundred and fifty thousand dol- 
lars in the hold of the ship. The friends said, 
"Where is your little boy, Tom?" Tears filled their 
eyes as they answered, "Oh, we left Tom buried be- 
neath the snow and the ice, on the banks of the Yukon ; 
and we would gladly give all our gold if we only had 
our boy." "Is it well with thee, is it well with thy 
husband, is it well with the child?" There was an- 
other man who had paid no attention to the Bible. 
But his only son died. After that, every night he 
could be seen in his home by a light, looking into the 
Bible. Some one asked him what he was doing that 
for. And he said, "I am trying to find out where 
Johnny has gone." Oh, beloved, don't wait until it 



38 IS IT WELL WITH THEE 

is too late to ask these questions. "Is it well with 
thee, is it well with thy husband, is it well with the 
child? " Don't wait too long. It is too late to re- 
pair the ship after it has left dry dock, and has 
started across the high seas. It is too late to write 
your fire insurance after the fire is discovered, and 
the flames are shooting through the roof. It is too 
late to send for the doctor after the undertaker has 
arrived and has already pumped the body full of 
embalming fluid. It is too late to preach the Gospel 
sermon, offer the intercessory prayer, and sing the 
heart touching spiritual song, after the dews of death 
have gathered on the brow, and the breath of life 
has gone, and the red blood has ceased coursing 
through the arteries. Don't be too late ! "Is it well 
with thee, is it well with thy husband, is it well with 
the child?" Maybe you think it would be well with 
you, if you could get all the money you want. But 
that is a terrible mistake. A millionaire in London 
took sick. The doctor came and said the patient 
had Meningitis. The millionaire patient said, "If 
you will keep me alive till eight o'clock tomorrow 
morning, I'll give you a hundred thousand pounds. 
That was the equivalent of nearly five hundred thou- 
sand dollars in U. S. money. The doctor said, "I 
have prescriptions, and remedies for disease, but I 
have no time to sell. That belongs to God." 

If you think money is all you need, go with me in 
thought to New York. Think of the date of our 



IS IT WELL WITH THEE 39 



visit Jto New York as being spme years ago, tips _ 
(y$fetiUi&£^^ fa@Xbtte$l8z 1 who 

and Quincy Garrett of the Baltimore and Ohio R. R. 
marching tip Fifth Avenue. Let us follow them. 
They march to the Vanderbilt palace on Fifth Ave- 
nue, and they go in. Mr. Vanderbilt was worth a 
hundred and ninety-six mililon dollars at that very 
minute. If^ money could satisfy any one, surely he 
should have been satisfied. Perhaps you would want 
to exchange places with him. But we see those two 
giants of finance in the money center of America 
step into the library of the Vanderbilt palace, and 
we follow them to the library entrance. We pause 
there and hear them discussing business. Vander- 
bilt is worried because Mr. Garrett will not enter 
into a business agreement with him, and in a sudden 
fit of apoplexy, he falls forward out of his chair, and 
when Quincy Garrett picked him up from the floor, 
William H. Vanderbilt was a corpse. What use 
now ialiis 19G million dollars to him? Money only 
benefits you while this present life lasts. But "What 
shall it profit a man, if he gain the whole world and 
lose his own soul?" 

"Is it well with thee, is it well with thy husband, 
is it well with the child?" Maybe you still have an 
impression that if you had plenty of money it would 
be well with you. Go with me next to the home of 
George M. Pullman, the Palace car millionaire of 
Chicago. He was worth twenty million dollars. 



40 IS IT WELL WITH THEE 

Surely his wealth makes it well with him! Let us 
see. We arrive at his palacial residence, and we 
gain admittance to his home, and to the very room 
that is occupied by Mr. Pullman. The great palace 
car magnate is sick. We stand at his bedside, and 
soon we discover that he is dying. His eyes are 
dilating, his breath is becoming shorter, his muscles 
grow rigid, Rigor Mortis sets in, dissolution is rapid- 
ly going on, and look! He is dead. Oh, "Is it well 
with thee?" Presently an undertaker appears at 
the Pullman home, and after making an incision in 
Mr. Pullman's left arm, he pumps the body full of 
embalming fluid, which leaves it as white as alabas- 
ter, and as cold as polished marble. Soon a rose- 
wood jeweled casket is brought into the room. It 
has handles of silver and gold, and is richly adorned 
with jems. The embalmed body of the palace car 
millionaire is placed in the jeweled rosewood casket. 
That is then put inside of a metallic casket, which is 
promptly hermetically sealed. Then they wrap the 
hermetically sealed metallic casket in bitumen soak- 
ed cloth. Next, after the usual delay and prelimin- 
ary arrangements, the funeral cortege moves slowly 
along the streets to the Graceland Cemetery. There, 
a grave had been dug, nine feet long, nine feet wide, 
and nine feet deep. The funeral cortege halts, while 
some workmen proceed to pour into the grave liquid 
concrete and cement, until the grave is half full. 
Then, while the cement and concrete is still pliable, 



IS IT WELL WITH THEE 41 

another set of workmen put down into the cement 
and concrete a steel cage, which has steel bars one 
inch apart. Then the double casket, containing the 
embalmed body of the palace car millionaire, is low- 
ered into the steel cage. Then the steel workmen 
rivet steel bars, one inch apart, over the top of the 
steel cage. Then the workers in concrete and ce- 
ment proceed to pour in more liquid concrete and 
cement, until the grave lacks only eighteen inches 
of being full. Next, they put in layer after layer of 
black soil, and roll each layer before putting in the 
next one, until the grave is filled and rolled even 
with the level of the surface of the ground. Then, 
with a whisk broom and dust pan, they sweep up the 
loose pieces of dirt. Next morning, when the sun- 
shine came streaming through the gates of the dawn, 
kissing the dewdrops from the flowers, if you didn't 
know it, you could never tell that the body of George 
M. Pullman, the millionaire, was sleeping there, 
waiting for the trumpet of Gabriel to summon him 
to the judgment. But the trumpet shall sound, and 
God can break that old sarcopagus of cement and 
steel, just as easy as if it were only a peanut shell. 
And the occupant of that grave will have to appear 
at the judgment seat of Christ, just the same as the 
poor old hobo who never rode in a Pullman car in all 
his) life. Maybe you think that if you held high of- 
ficial position, it would be well with you. Let us 
call on some of those in high official position and 



42 IS IT WELL WITH THEE 

see. We call on the great Alexander, who conquered 
the known world, and we find him grieving because 
there were no more worlds to conquer, and he died 
at the early age of thirty-there, from the effects of 
drinking too much wine. We call on the illustrious 
Julius Caesar, after he became Emperor of Rome, 
and we hear him, in his disappointment, say, "Is 
this all?" And some time later he died from the 
attack of the assassins. Queen Elizabeth w r as the 
sovereign ruler of Great Britain, which is so vast in 
area that the sun never sets on British soil. She 
counted her jewels by the peck, and had thousands 
of fine dresses in her wardrobe, and as she is dying, 
hear her exclaim, "All my possessions for one min- 
ute of time!" Solomon tried all that the world had 
to offer, and he said, "All is vanity, and vexation 
of spirit." 

"Is it well with thee, is it well with thy husband, 
is it well with the child?" I answer, No, it is not 
well with you unless you have found and accepted 
Jesus Christ as your personal Savior. How may it 
be well with you? Let us look into the Bible for 
the answer. See I John, 5:11-13. "God gave unto 
us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. He that 
hath the Son hath the life ; he that hath not the Son 
of God hath not the life. These things have I writ- , 
ten unto you that ye may know that ye have eternal 
life, even unto you that believe on the name of the 
Son of God." See also John 3:36. "He that be- 



IS IT WELL WITH THEE 43 

lieves on the Son has eternal life ; but he that disbe- 
lieves the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of 
God abides on him. ' ' 

Then, too, not only has God given unto us eternal 
life in His Son, but He also promises us a place in 
which to enjoy the eternal life. See John, 14:1-3. 
"Let not your heart be troubled: believe in God, be- 
lieve also in Me. In My Father's house are many 
abiding places; otherwise, I would have told you; 
because I am going to prepare a place for you. And, 
if I go and prepare a place for you, I am coming 
again, and will receive you to Myself; that, where 
I am, ye may be also." 

The Father's house referred to is Heaven. And 
by referring to Kev. 21-16, we find that it is 12000 
furlongs, or 1500 miles, every way. There is room 
in so vast a city for a great number of abiding 
places. And it will be very blessed to be there. 
Then in John, 14 :5-6, 1 find the following language, 
"Thomas says to Him, 'Lord, we know not whither 
Thou art going; how do we know the way?' Jesus 
saith to him, 'I am the way, and the truth, and the 
life. No one comes to the Father, except through 
Me'." So, by accepting Jesus as your Savior, you 
get eternal life in Him, and when you have found 
Him, you have also found the way to Heaven. But, 
if you have accepted Him, you are entitled to his 
comforting protection and help in this present world. 
Psalm, 34:7. "The angel of Jehovah encampeth 



44 IS IT WELL WITH THEE 

round about them that fear Him, and delivereth 
them. " And Psalm, 91 :11, "He will give His angels 
charge over thee to keep thee in all thy ways. " 

A deer hunter told about being out one morning, 
walking across his field, when he heard the barking 
of the hounds, and discovered that they were ap- 
proaching him. He looked through a crack in the 
fence, and saw a little 'fawn that was almost worn 
out with being chased. It's tongue was hanging 
out, and its sides were lathered and flecked with 
foam. It barely had strength enough to jump over 
the fence. There it stood and looked around in af- 
fright. Its great liquid eyes looked pitiful as it saw 
a hound leap over the fence a few feet away. It's 
first impulse appeared to be to run. But instead of 
bounding away, it ran toward the hunter, and threw 
itself in a heap at his feet. He said that he stood 
there and fought dogs for nearly an hour. And he 
has said he felt that all the dogs in America could 
not take that little fawn, after it, in its weakness, 
had appealed to him and his strength for protection. 
Thus, when you, a Christian, in this present world, 
are pursued by the hounds of sin, and the dogs of 
hell are reaching for your throat, the wise and only 
safe course is to throw yourself at the feet of Jesus. 
He will fight your battles for you. And the devil, 
who is going about, seeking whom he may devour, 
will flee from any Christian, even the weakest, as 
soon as he sees that Christian at the feet of Jesus. 



IS IT WELL WITH THEE 45 

Just listen to the words of our Lord, John, X, 27-30. 
"My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and 
they follow Me ; and I give to them eternal life ; and 
they shall never perish, nor shall any one snatch 
them out of My hand. My Father, Who hath given 
them to Me, is greater than all, and no 1 one is able 
to snatch them out of the Father's hand. I and the 
Father are One." 

Yea, dear child of God, come up close to your Lord, 
and nestle close to Him, for he has said, "I will never 
leave you nor forsake you." And "He will cover 
you with His pinions, and under His wings shalt thou 
take refuge." He also says, "I will deliver you 
from the snare of the fowler, and from the deadly 
pestilence. A thousand shall fall at thy side, and 
ten thousand at thy right hand, but it shall not come 
nigh thee." 

"Is it well with thee? Is it well with thy hus- 
band? Is it well with the child?" It is well with 
all who have come to Jesus for repose, and for safety, 
and for leadership. Without Jesus, no one is safe, 
and with Him, every one is perfectly safe. I want 
to close this address with a verse of an old Baptist 
hymn. 

"Fear not ; I am with thee ; be not dismayed, I, I 
am thy God, and will give thee aid ; I will strengthen 
thee, help thee, and cause thee to stand, Upheld by 
My righteous, omnipotent hand. 



46 IS IT WELL WITH THEE 

The soul that on Jesus still leans for repose, I will 
not, I will not desert to his foes; 

That soul, though all hell should endeavor to 
shake, 

I will never, no never, no never forsake!" 



Ill 
HOW SHALL WE ESCAPE ? 

S. W. BRANDOM 

Heb. 2:1-4. "For this reason, it is needful that 
we give the more earnest heed to the things heard, 
lest at any time we drift past them. For, if the word 
spoken through angels became steadfast, and every 
transgression and disobedience received a righteous 
recompense, how shall we escape, having neglected 
so great salvation ; which, indeed, having at first been 
spoken through the Lord, was confirmed to us by 
those who heard; God testifying with them, both 
with signs and wonders and manifold miracles, and 
distributions of the Holy Spirit, according to His 
will?" (Worrell's Translation.) 

I call attention particularly to Heb. 2:3, "How 
shall we escape, having neglected so great salva- 
tion?" In the first place, from the sentiment of the 
text it is plain that there is folly in neglecting this 
great salvation. According to Proverbs, 13 :16, 
"Every prudent man dealeth with knowledge; but 
a fool layeth open his folly." And according to 
Proverbs, 14:8, "The wisdom of the prudent is to 
understand his way; but the folly of fools is deceit." 
Prov. 14:16, "A wise man feareth, and departeth 
from evil; but the fool rageth, and is confident." 

47 



48 HOW SHALL WE ESCAPE 

Prov. 14:18, "The simple inherit folly." Psalms, 
49:13, "This their way is their folly." Prov. 26:5, 
"Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise 
in his own conceit." 

Some otherwise excellent people seem to regard 
the folly of neglecting this great salvation as an in- 
significant matter, but the truth is that folly is wick- 
edness. See Ecclesiastes, 7:25, "I applied my heart 
to know, and to search, and to seek out wisdom, and 
the reason of things, and to know the wickedness of 
folly, even of foolishness and madness." Not only 
is folly wickedness, but the folly and wickedness of 
neglecting this great salvation will finally be made 
manifest to all. See 2 Tim. 3:9, "For their folly 
will be fully manifest to all." 

In the second place, there is criminality and guilt 
in neglecting this great salvation. Speaking in 
Ezekiel, 18:4, God says, "Behold, all souls are Mine; 
as the soul of the father, so also the soul of the son 
is Mine; the soul that sinneth, it shall die." 

God has delivered a precious soul into your hands 
and keeping, and you owe to God the duty to pre- 
serve that soul alive, and not only so, but you should 
keep that soul well nourished and fed on the sort of 
food that will contribute to its best growth and de- 
velopment. If you feed it on sin, death of the soul 
is the result, and God says so in the verse that I have 
quoted. "The soul that sinneth, it shall die." God 
is your friend. If some friend delivered to you a 



HOW SHALL WE ESCAPE 49 

horse for you to use, you would owe that friend 
the duty to feed the horse proper food, and to make 
provision for its safety. Why don't you treat God 
as well in regard to the soul which He has delivered 
to you? That soul is worth more than all the horses 
in the whole world. Yet you have thus far made no 
provision for that soul's safety. And in addition to 
this terrible crime of neglecting to provide for its 
safety, you are feeding it on the very sort of food 
that means its eternal death. It is just as criminal 
for a man to murder himself as to murder some one 
else. There was a time in England when a suicide 
was not permitted to have decent burial. The body 
of a suicide was placed in a cross roads, a stake was 
driven through the body to hold it firmly to the 
ground so ravenous beasts could not drag it away, 
and there it must stay and decay in sight of the 
travelers that journeyed that way. The purpose of 
the law was to deter others from self murder. The 
government of England thus punished one guilty of 
self murder. , 

No one has a right to throw away lightly the life 
that God has given him, neither has any one the right 
to throw away the soul that God has given him. You 
are under every obligation of love, and appreciation, 
and gratitude, and duty, to preserve your soul alive, 
and to give the service of both soul and life to God. 
You owe that much to God just as truly as a farm 
tenant owes the rent of the farm to the owner of 



50 HOW SHALL WE ESCAPE 

the farm. It is just as dishonest to defraud God 
out of the service due Him as to defraud a land 
owner out of his rent. And your fears that you could 
not serve God as faithfully as you ought, is no good 
reason for denying the debt of service which you owe 
Him for His many blessings to you. In the third 
place, there are at least four reasons why this sal- 
vation is so great a salvation. 

1. It is a great salvation on account of the way 
it was given. God Himself, manifest in the flesh, in 
the person of Jesus Christ, died on the cross, by the 
cruel death of crucifixion, to give this salvation to 
this lost and ruined race, and to every individual 
member of the race. See Heb. 1:1-6, "God, having 
in many parts and in many ways spoken, of old, to 
the fathers in the prophets, at the end of these days 
spake to us in His Son, "Whom He appointed Heir of 
all things, through "Whom also He constituted the 
ages ; Who, being an effulgence of His glory and an 
exact expression of His substance, and upholding all 
things by the word of His power, having made a puri- 
fication of sins, sat down on the right hand of the 
Majesty on high ; having become by so much superior 
to the angels, as He hath inherited a more excellent 
name than they. For to whom of the angels said 
He at any time, 'You are My Son; I this day have 
begotten you'? And again, 'I will be to him a Fath- 
er; and He shall be to Me a Son'? But, when again 
He introduces the First-born into the inhabited earth, 



HOW SHALL WE ESCAPE 51 

He saith, 'And let all the angels of God worship 
Him'." 

If God had sent ns the Gospel message of salva- 
tion by godly men, it should put on us the duty and 
obligation of heeding and accepting it. Then if God 
had sent us the gospel message of salvation by angels, 
it would lay on us a still greater duty and obliga- 
tion to give consideration thereto, and to accept it. 
Then if God sent us the Gospel message of salvation 
by such a distinguished personage as Hist own Son, 
the very Heir of God, or Heir apparent, the only 
begotten Son of the Father, that would place on us 
a still greater duty and obligation to duly regard and 
accept it. Now the fact is that God has sent the 
message of salvation in all of these three ways. He 
delivered it by the prophets and holy men of God 
that have lived and preached all through the ages 
past, and in the present time as well. Then He sent 
the message by angels. See the following texts of 
Scripture : Luke, 1 :10, referring to a conversation 
with Zacharias, "And the angel, answering, said to 
him, 'I am Gabriel, who have been standing near be- 
fore God, and I was sent to speak to you, and to 
proclaim these glad tidings to you\" 

Luke, 2:8-14, "And there were shepherds in the 
same country abiding in the field, and keeping watch 
by night over their flock. And an angel of the Lord 
stood by them, and the glory of the Lord shone 
round about them ; and they were greatly frightened. 



52 HOW SHALL WE ESCAPE 

And the angel said to them, 'Fear not; for, behold, 
I bring you good tidings of great joy, which, indeed, 
shall be to all the people ; because there was born to- 
day, in the city of David, a Savior, "Who is Christ the 
Lord. And this is the sign to you; you will find a 
Babe wrapped in swadling clothes, and lying in a 
manger. ' And suddenly there was with the angel a 
multitude of the Heavenly host, praising God, and 
saying, ' Glory to God in the highest; and, on earth, 
peace among men of good will'. " 

Then God also sent the message of salvation by His 
Son, and spoke to us through the words, and life, and 
death, and burial and resurrection of His Son, the 
Lord Jesus Christ. Oh, "How shall we escape, hav- 
ing neglected so great salvation*" Neglecting this 
salvation means both defiance and contempt of God 
the Father, and of His Son. See Heb. 10:28-31: 
"Anyone, having set aside Moses' law, dies without 
mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses; 
of how much worse punishment, think ye, shall he be 
accounted worthy, who trampled under foot the Son 
of God, and accounted the blood of the covenant with 
which He was sanctified an unholy thing, and treated 
with contempt the Spirit of grace? For we know 
Him Who said, 'To Me belongs vengeance; I will 
recompense,' saith the Lord; and again, 'The Lord 
will judge His people.' It is a fearful thing to fall 
into the hands of the living God ! ' ' 

2. The greatness of this salvation is manifested in 



HOW SHALL WE ESCAPE 53 

the price that was paid for it, and the circumstances 
of the payment of that place. As stated in Romans 
6:23, "The wages of sin is death.' ' The devil had 
got the upper hand of this lost race, and was receiv- 
ing the services of humanity, and his possession 
meant the control of every lost soul for both time 
and eternity. Although your soul belonged ot God, 
the devil got hold of you with your soul that belongs 
to God. To redeem and buy back that soul, God 
paid the enormous price of Christ's precious blood, 
by coming down into a human body and paying the 
penalty of death for you, in your place. Now what 
a great double wrong and fraud will be perpetrated 
on God if the devil is still allowed to hold your soul 
after God has bought it back! 

3. The greatness of this salvation is shown in the 
fact that it is the only salvation. Acts, 4:12, "And 
in no one else is there salvation ; for neither is there 
any other name under Heaven, that has been given 
among men, in which we must be saved. 

I. Cor. 3 :11, "For other foundation can no man lay 
than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ." 

John, 14:6, "Jesus saith to him, 'I am the way, and 
the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father, 
except through Me\" 

If this house should now catch fire, and there were 
several ways to escape, you would be justifiable in 
accepting either way of escape. But if there were 
only one way to escape, and you had a chance to ac- 



54 HOW SHALL WE ESCAPE 

cept that way,, you would be criminally negligent if 
you refused that way. But you are right now in the 
burning house of sin, and there is only one way to 
escape. Christ is that way. How shall you escape, 
having neglected so great salvation ! If you neglect 
this way, you will be burned up and consumed in the 
burning house of your sins. 

4. The greatness of this salvation is also shown 
by what it brings to those who accept it. Viz, Par- 
don, Peace, Joy, Eternal Life, An Inheritance, In- 
corruptible in Heaven that Fadeth not Away, and 
Safety, and Rest. 

1st. This salvation brings full pardon for all sin, 
and entire forgiveness of all your sins the moment 
you accept Christ. See Jeremiah, 31, 34, "For I will 
forgive their iniquity, and their sin will I remember 
no more." Psalms, 103:12, "As far as the east is 
from the west, so far hath He removed our trans- 
gressions from us." Micah, 7:19, "He will turn 
again, He will have compassion upon us ; He will sub- 
due our iniquities; and thou wilt cast all their sins 
into the depths of the sea." 

2nd. This salvation brings peace. Luke, 2:14, 
"Peace among men of good will." Rom. 5:1, "Hav- 
ing been justified, therefore, by faith, we have peace 
with God through our Lord Jesus Christ." Isaiah, 
26 :3-4, "Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose 
mind is stayed on Thee ; because he trusteth in Thee. 
Trust ye in Jehovah forever." Psalms 29:11, "Je- 



HOW SHALL WE ESCAPE 55 

hovah will bless His people with peace." Psalms, 
85 :8, "I will hear what God the Lord will speak : for 
He will speak peace unto His people, and to His 
saints : but let them not turn again to folly. ' ' Psalms, 
119 :165, "Great peace have they who love Thy law." 

I call your attention also to the fact that none but 
the saved have peace. If you ask how I know, I an- 
swer that God knows, and I know because God tells 
me so in His word. Isaiah, 43 :22, ' ' There is no 
peace, saith the Lord, unto the wicked." Isaiah 
57:20-21, "The wicked are like the troubled sea, 
when it cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and 
dirt. There is no peace, saith my God, to the 
wicked. ' ' Isaiah, 59 :7-8, ' ' Their feet run to evil, 
and they make haste to shed innocent blood; their 
thoughts are thoughts of iniquity; wasting and de- 
struction are in their paths. The way of peace they 
know not ; and there is no judgment in their going ; 
they have made them crooked paths; whosoever 
goeth therein shall not know peace." Romans, 3 :- 
16-17, "Destruction and misery are in their ways; 
and the ways of peace have they not known," 

3rd. This salvation brings joy. 

Romans 5:2-3, "We rejoice in hope of the glory 
of God. And not only so, but we also rejoice in our 
tribulations." Isaiah 61:10, "I will greatly rejoice 
in Jehovah, my soul shall be joyful in my God; for 
He hath clothed me with the garments of salvation." 
I. Peter, 1:8, "Though now not seeing Him, yet be- 



56 HOW SHALL WE ESCAPE 

lieving, ye exult with joy unspeakable and full of 
glory." Habakkuk 3:18, "I will rejoice in the 
Lord." John 16 :22, "I will see you again, and your 
heart shall rejoice." Psalms, 118:15, "The voice 
of rejoicing and salvation is in the tabernacle of the 
righteous. ' ' Psalms, 119 :111, ' ' Thy testimonies have 
I taken as an heritage forever: for they are the re- 
joicing of my heart." Psalms, 107:22, "And let 
them sacrifice the sacrifice of thanksgiving, and de- 
clare His works with rejoicing." Job, 8:21, "Till 
He fill thy mouth with laughter, and thy lips with 
rejoicing." Prov. 8:20-21, "Rejoicing always be- 
fore Him; Eejoicing in the habitable part of the 
earth. ' ' 

Friends, the devil has deceived a lot of folks, and 
has got them to believe that the Christian life is a 
gloomy, sad, and melancholy life ; and possibly some 
of you have been cited to some long faced, sad, sickly 
looking people who claimed to be Christians, and you 
have been looking for that kind of people when ever 
you look for saved folks. But if yo\i know some 
downcast, long faced, unhappy people in the world, 
let me tell you something. It isn't religion that's 
the matter with them, it is dyspepsia. For I know 
from personal experience that religion is the most 
joyous and happy possession that any one ever had. 
Don't you libel religion by telling people that real 
Christians are not happy, for that isn't so. Real 
Christians are happy and joyous in this present 



HOW SHALL WE ESCAPE 57 

world, and we will be still happier in the next world. 

4th. This salvation brings us Eternal Life. 

John 3:15-16, " Every one who believes in Him 
may have eternal life. For God so loved the world, 
that He gave His only begotten Son, that every one 
who believes on Him should not perish, but have 
eternal life." Rom. 6:22, "Having been made free 
from sin, and having been made slaves to God ye 
have your fruit unto holiness, and the end eternal 
life." Rom. 6:23, "The gift of God is eternal life 
in Jesus Christ, our Lord." I. John 5:11-12, "God 
gave to us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. 
He that has the Son has the life ; he that has not the 
Son of God has not the life." John 3:36, "He that 
believes on the Son has eternal life." 

5th. This salvation brings us an incorruptible in- 
heritance, unclefiled, and that fadeth not away. 

Ephesians 1 .-13-14, "Ye were sealed with the Holy 
Spirit of promise, which is an earnest of our inherit- 
ance." Colossians 1:12, "Giving thanks to the 
Father, Who made us meet for the portion of the in- 
heritance of the saints in light." I. Peter 1:3-5, 
"Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus 
Christ, Who, according to His abundant mercy, begat 
us again to a living hope through the resurrection 
of Jesus Christ from among the dead, to an inherit- 
ance incorruptible, and undefiled, and unfading; 
kept in Heaven for you who are being guarded by 
God's power, through faith." 



58 HOW SHALL WE ESCAPE 

6th. This salvation brings Safety to all who ac- 
cept it. 

Proverbs 29:25, " Whoso putteth his trust in Je- 
hovah shall be safe." Pro v. 18:10, "The name of 
Jehovah is a strong tower. The righteous runneth 
into it, and is safe." 

This safety naturally leads to the next blessing 
of salvation, viz : 7th. This salvation brings us Rest. 
Psalms 37:7, "Rest in the Lord." Jeremiah 6:16, 
' ' Thus saith the Lord, Stand ye in the ways, and see, 
and ask for the old paths, where is the good way, 
and walk therein, and ye shall find rest for your 
souls." Isaiah, 57:2, "He shall enter into peace: 
they shall rest in their beds, each one walking in his 
uprightness." Heb. 4:3, "For we who believed do 
enter into rest." In Mat. 11:28-29, Jesus says, 
"Come to Me, all ye who are laboring and are heavy 
laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke up- 
on you, and learn of Me; because I am meek and 
lowly in heart ; and ye shall find rest for your souls." 

There is also an eternal rest for the people of God. 
Revelations 14:13, "And I heard a voice from Heav- 
en, saying, ' Write: Happy are the dead who die in 
the Lord from henceforth! Yea, saith the Spirit, 
that they may rest from their labors ; for their works 
follow with them.' " 

The unsaved do not have soul rest even now, and 
not a single moment's rest shall they have after this 
life is over. 



HOW SHALL WE ESCAPE 59 

Hebrews 3:10-11, "They do always err in their 
heart, and they did not know My ways; as I swore 
in My wrath, they shall not enter into My rest." 
Matt. 25 :41, ' ' Then will He say also to those on the 
left hand, Depart from Me, ye accursed! into the 
eternal fire which was prepared for the Devil and 
his angels.' ' Matt. 25:46, "And these shall go away 
into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eter- 
nal life." 

Rev. 14:9-11, "And another angel, a third, fol- 
lowed, saying, with a great voice, 'If anyone wor- 
ships the beast and his image, and receives a mark 
on his forehead or on his hand, he also shall drink 
of the wine of the wrath of God, which has been 
mingled undiluted in the cup of His anger; and he 
shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the 
presence of the holy angels, and before the Lamb. 
And the smoke of their torment ascends forever; 
and they have no rest day and night, those who wor- 
ship the beast and his image, and whosoever receives 
the mark of his name." 

Revelation, 20:15, "And, if anyone was not found 
written in the book of life, he was cast into the lake 
of fire." Rev. 21 :8, "For the fearful, and unbeliev- 
ing, and abominable, and murderers, and fornica- 
tors, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, their 
part shall be in the lake that burns with fire and 
brimstone; which is the second death." 

In the fourth place, All you have to do to miss 



60 HOW SHALL WE ESCAPE 

this salvation is simply to neglect it. If you were 
in a deep well, and had no way to get out, and some 
men came to rescue you with a rope strong enough 
to lift you out, and then lowered the rope until it 
was within your reach, and urged you to take hold, 
and then truly and in all sincerity of purpose pro- 
mised you that if you would take hold and cling to 
the rope they would pull you out, all you would have 
to do to stay in the well and perish would be simply 
to neglect to take hold and cling to the rope. If 
you accidentally swallowed a deadly poison, and a 
physician set before you the sure and certain anti- 
dote, and told you to drink the antidote which he 
had set before you already dissolved in a glass of 
water, all you would have to do to miss the curing 
and healing power of the antidote, is to neglect to 
take it. 

In the fifth place, to neglect this great salvation 
means to be lost eternally. Therefore, to be lost, 
you do not have to shoot at the preacher, throw 
rocks at the meeting house, nor rob a train, but 
simply neglect this salvation. John 3:18, "He that 
believes on Him is not judged; he that believes not 
has been judged already, because he has not believed 
on the name of the only begotten Son of God." 

Romans, 2:11-13, "For there is no respect of per- 
sons with God ; for as many as sinned without law 
shall perish without law; and as many as sinned 
under law shall be judged by law ; for not the hear- 



HOW SHALL WE ESCAPE 61 

ers of law are righteous before God, but the doers 
shall be justified." 

These and other scriptures clearly teach that the 
soul perishes that neglects this great salvation. 
There are men in Scotland who make their living 
gathering bird's eggs. Sometimes they tie a long 
rope to a tree or some other firm object, and then 
tie the other end of the rope around their own body, 
and swing over the cliffs that project out over the 
sea. One day one of those egg gatherers was hunt- 
ing bird's eggs, and having secured the rope to a 
tree, tied the other end of the rope around his body, 
and let himself down onto a ledge of rock far below 
the crest of the cliff that rose high above the sea. 
He was busy collecting eggs from the nests that the 
birds had built on the shelves of the projecting 
rock. The rope came untied, and before he knew it, 
the rope swung out over the sea. It was far beyond 
his reach. He realized his danger, and during the 
several hours that he stood there on a shelf of the 
rock, he made up his mind that he was destined to 
die there from starvation or else fall and perish in 
the sea. But finally a strong breeze sprang up from 
the sea, and the force of the wind blew the swinging 
rope toward him. He noticed the rope swinging in, 
driven by the force of the favoring breeze, and he 
said to himself, "That is my last hope. If I jump 
for the rope and miss it I die, and if I stay here I 
die." Getting ready for the leap, he watched the 



62 HOW SHALL WE ESCAPE 

rope, and as it again swung in toward him, he leaped 
and caught it, and climbed to the top of the cliff, 
and was saved. But his hands were burned to the 
bone, and his hair had become as white as snow. 
This great salvation that is now offered to you, is 
the only rope that will ever swing between you and 
the sea of eternal despair. It is your only hope. It 
is your last hope. If you miss it you die, and if you 
stay where you are you die. Make ready now for 
the supreme effort of your whole life. Watch, and 
as the friendly rope of salvation swings in toward 
you, driven by the force of God's favoring breeze of 
love, leap for it and climb to a place of safety. 

I hold in my hand an envelope. On one side I 
have written the question, What must you do to be 
lost? Below that I have written the answer, Noth- 
ing. I now turn the envelope over. On this other 
side I have written the question, What must you do 
to be saved? Below that I have written the answer, 
in the language of Acts 16:31, "Believe on the Lord 
Jesus, and you shall be saved.'' To believe on Jesus 
is to accept Him as your Savior and Lord, and then 
confess Him before men., Rom. 10:10, "For with 
the heart man believes unto righteousness ; and with 
the mouth confession is made unto salvation." In 
Matt. 10:32, Jeuss says, "Every one, therefore, who 
shall confess Me before men, him will I also confess 
before My Father Who is in Heaven." 

In the sixth place, there is danger in delay. 



HOW SHALL WE ESCAPE 63 

Many years ago William A. Rogers was President 
of Marietta female college in Georgia. One morn- 
ing, his wife felt somewhat indisposed, and sent to 
a drug store for some quinine. Mrs. Rogers put the 
quinine powder on her tongue, and then rinsed it 
down with water. As soon as she had swallowed it 
she spoke to Professor Rogers, saying, "Husband, 
that was not quinine I took just now. I sent for 
quinine, but I am satisfied that was not quinine." 

Rogers ran to the drug store and said to the clerk, 
"What was that you sent my wife?" The clerk 
threw up his hands and said, "Sir, I have sent 
enough morphine to your house to kill a dozen per- 
sons." 

Mr. Rogers ran to a doctor's office and got two 
doctors. They gave Mrs. Rogers emetics, and then 
administered strong coffee and various remedies. 
Soon a death like stupor began to creep over her, 
and Mr. Rogers said, "Is there any chance to save 
my poor wife?" They said, "Yes! If we can keep 
her awake for four hours we can save her life." 
They walked her up and down the house across 
rooms, and threw cold water in her face, and whip- 
ped her with cruel switches, and used every means 
they could to keep her awake. The stupor became 
so oppressive that she turned to Mr. Rogers and 
pleaded, "Husband, please let me go to sleep." He 
answered, "Oh, wife, if you go to sleep you will 
never wake up again in this world." She replied, 



64 HOW SHALL WE ESCAPE 

"I know that, but please let me go to sleep." They 
walked her hurriedly about the place, and in a short 
time the death like stupor so overwhelmed her 
whole being that she spoke again to Mr. Rogers, 
"Husband, please, Sir, let me sleep for just five 
minutes.' ' He answered, "Wife, if you go to sleep 
for five minutes, you'll never wake up." And thus 
the struggle went on until the four hours passed, 
and she was safe. 

And just so I find men, women and children. They 
have been deceived. They have swallowed the opi- 
ate of sin, the powder of unbelief, and washed it 
down with the water of worldliness, and they are 
benumbed by the poisonous powder. They say, 
"Just let me sleep tonight." "Just let me sleep 
every night this week." In fact the devil wants 
you to sleep until the last opportunity that you will 
ever have to accept this great salvation has pasesd 
and gone, and then he won't care how sadly you 
wail, "Lost, Lost, Forever Lost!" Friends, I urge 
you to come to Jesus now. For "How shall we es- 
cape, having neglected so great salvation"? 



IV 

THE SOUTH WIND 

S. W. BRANDOM 

"When the South Wind was blowing gently," 
Acts 27:13. (Worrell's Translation.) 

Oh ! how deceptive the south wind can be ! ! It 
comes in the Springtime, laden with the sweet per- 
fumes of flowers, and melodious with the caroling of 
birds. It harmonizes with the new vernal garb of 
the richly robed vegetation, blending the mellowing 
influences of the Springtime with the delicate per- 
fumes of orange blossoms, and the enticing odors of 
flowering almonds and magnolias. It may bring with 
it the indescribable sweetness of the scented atmos- 
phere that has been hovering over the beautiful 
southland, where it absorbed the blended odors of 
the cypress swamps, the orchard covered hillsides, 
the pine clad mountains, the cereal producing val- 
leys, and the pecan groves. 

Or, the south wind blowing gently may bring with 
it the delicious fragrance of the blossoming elms, or 
the lucious sweetness of the delicate exhalations of 
the sugar maples. But in the Autumn time, when 
the forests are in the yellow leaf, as was the case at 
the Fair Havens, the south wind blowing gently may 
bring a suggestion of continued fair weather in the 
breeze that, only recently, has kissed the fertile val- 

65 



66 THE SOUTH WIND 

ley of the Nile, and played with the leaves and lotus 
blossoms that grew beyond the Mediterranean coast, 
on far Egypt's shore. It may also bring a breath of 
the salt sea which it captured in crossing the great 
sea, the Mediterranean, before reaching the Cretan 
coast at the Fair Havens. 

"When the south wind was blowing gently," the 
tremulous rippling of the waves, the pervading calm- 
ness of the sea, the mild touch of the fragrant breeze, 
and the lower moaning of the sea, as the white foam 
and the surf lashed the shore, all combined to lull 
the mind, soothe the heart, and stupefy the soul into 
a state of forgetfulness and indiscretion. So great 
was their stupefying influence on the company of 
sailors at the Fair Havens, that their judgment was 
controlled by it. No wonder the Centurian yielded 
"when the south wind was blowing gently," espe- 
cially if he took into consideration the fact that it 
was only a few hours' sail from the Fair Havens to 
Phoenix ! 

"When the south wind was blowing gently," the 
opposition of Paul and others was disregarded, as 
though the southern breeze was a sufficient refuta- 
tion of their arguments ; and so they ventured out to 
sea. But a tempestuous wind soon arose, and "they 
were so exceedingly tossed with a tempest that on 
the next day they lightened the ship; and on the 
third day, they cast out the tackling," and then they 
were many days and nights without seeing any ap- 



THE SOUTH WIND 67 

pearance of the Sun, or the stars, and all hope that 
they should be saved was taken away. Many poor 
souls have reached the place in their sinful course 
where all hope that they should be saved was taken 
away. And like these people who took Paul with 
them from Fair Havens, their fears and terrors have 
been brought on themselves by yielding to tempta- 
tion, "when the south wind was blowing gently." 

While Christians are in the world, they should not 
be of the world. It is right and proper for Chris- 
tians to be in the world, but all wrong for the world 
to be in Christians. It is the worldly Christian that 
crucifies our Lord afresh, opens His wounds anew 
and puts Him to an open shame. Worldly Chris- 
tians are real obstacles in the way of the salvation of 
their loved ones who have never come to Christ. The 
combined forces of the world, the flesh and the Devil, 
with the deceitfulness of riches, the allurements of 
sinful pleasures, and the luxuries and glitter of 
wealth, are like the south wind blowing gently over 
the tropical sea of temptation, that lulls to sleep,, and 
then draws its victims away from the Fair Havens of 
safety. A mother, who was a worldly church mem- 
ber, lived in a neighborhood where an evangelist 
conducted a series of meetings. She had an only son 
just verging into manhood ; but he was not a Chris- 
tian. The family possessed wealth, and occupied a 
high social position in the community. The mother 
'vanted her son to take a course in dancing lessons 



68 THE SOUTH WIND 

to make him graceful in his movements, and to fit 
him for a social career. But she didn't want him to 
get religion yet, as she believed it might interfere 
with her social plans, and therefore she took him 
away from the neighborhood to keep him away from 
the meetings. But on the last day but one of that 
series of meetings, she returned home bringing with 
her that Son, a corpse in his casket. She had not so 
much as one single ray of hope that all was well 
with him. It was too late then to do personal work 
to save him. Too late ! Too late ! ! Hopeless were 
the tears and kisses that she showered on the form 
and face lying cold and silent in the godless casket. 
She had disobeyed the teaching of the apostle: "Be 
not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed 
by the renewing of your mind." She had been "con- 
fomed to this world," and therefore was like this 
world. "When the south wind was blowing gent- 
ly, ' ' she took her only son with her and sailed away 
from the Fair Havens. But at last, all hope that her 
Son should be saved was taken away. "Woe, to 
them that are at ease in Zion!" 

The world brings its flowers to the coffin. It visits 
the flower gardens and the hot houses, and there 
gathers the choicest flowers, and then places them on 
the casket cover. The fragrance of the tube roses, 
and the beauty of the floral offerings, blending with 
the pathetic strains of the solemn requiem, may serve 
as balm to ameliorate the sorrows, heal the wounds 



THE SOUTH WIND 69 

and bind up the bleeding hearts of the weeping 
friends of the deceased; but the perfumes of the 
floral tributes, and the beautiful colors of the costli- 
est flowers, cannot cheer the one whose body lies in- 
side the casket, no matter how magnificent the funer- 
al cortege may appear. Then, too, remember that 
some people kiss the dead who never stopped once 
to kiss the living. They may hover mournfully over 
the casket, and give expression to hysterical sobs, 
but fail to throw their arms around the loved ones 
who are fighting the obstinate battles of life. One 
cheerful word of encouragement, to a soul that is 
struggling with the difficulties of life, is worth more 
than all the kisses that can be showered on cold 
cheeks and silent lips, or flow T ers piled mountain high 
on the casket cover. The dead cannot inhale the 
sweetness of flowers, nor feel the velvety touch of 
ever so loving a kiss, but the living can. Therefore, 
without any w T ord of criticism whatever of the cus- 
tom of adorning a funeral bier with flowers, I plead 
with you to scatter the flowers of cheer along the 
pathway of the living, and pull out the thorns of 
criticism that hurt, and remove the briars of slander 
that injure, and lead your loved ones and your 
friends to Christ before the presence of death an- 
nounces the fatal words, Too Late ! Too Late ! ! 

While the blue skies above seemed to smile in 
sympathy on the scene, and the whole array of na- 
ture appeared drapped in a robe of calm repose, 



70 THE SOUTH WIND 

"When the south wind was blowing gently/' many 
another parent has sailed out of the Fair Havens of 
safety, and after a storm tossed and perilous voyage 
of a few days, has returned to former scenes with 
love wounded, drooping and lagging, and then in 
sorrow they have seen their dearest treasure lowered 
into the grave, and covered with the clods of the 
valley, and then they have turned away, leaving 
buried in a cheerless grave the crushed and bruised 
petals mercilessly torn from the flowers of ambition 
and blossoms of hope. Sorrow and death are the 
natural fruit of worldliness in any person's heart. 
Try to keep dangers and temptations away from 
your children. Spiritual dangers are worse than 
physical dangers. I know a woman whose little babe 
was active enough to crawl around over the floor, 
and pull itself up to an upright position when hold- 
ing to something like a chair. The mother placed a 
tub of hot water on the kitchen floor preparatory 
to scrubbing; and the little babe crawled along to 
the tub, and getting hold, pulled itself up, and fell 
over into the tub of scalding water, and was scalded 
to death. Sad as that case seems, it shows the ease 
with which a child may be destroyed from exposure 
to physical dangers. But spiritual dangers surround 
children on every side, while parents seem uncon- 
cerned and indifferent. "When the south wind was 
blowing gently," parents have sailed from the Fair 
Havens, far out on the sea of worldliness, leaving 



THE SOUTH WIND 71 

their children unprotected and constantly exposed 
to the perils of eternal death. 

According to Acts 27:21, "And when they had 
been long without food, then Paul stood forth in the 
midst of them, and said, Sirs, ye should have heark- 
ened unto me, and not have set sail from Crete, and 
have gotten this injury and loss." And just so, 
many a soul who left the Fair Havens, ""When the 
south wind was blowing gently," will wish ere long 
that they had hearkened to the warning of some man 
of God. And "when the south wind was blowing 
gently" was a time that you should have remained 
at the Fair Havens. Many souls that sailed from the 
Fair Havens, "when the south wind was blowing 
gently," are now tempest tossed, and are rushing on 
to the rocks of eternal doom so fast that nothing 
short of a marvelous miracle of Grace and the power 
of God can ever rescue them. 

We find in the lesson that "Paul admonished them, 
and said unto them, Sirs, I perceive that the voyage 
will be with injury and much loss, not only of the 
lading and the ship, but also of our lives." 

And although warned, many a crowd like that at 
Fair Havens has made the mistake of voting wrong, 
showing also that sometimes the minority is right, and 
the majority wrong. This is shown by the triumph 
of Elijah and Elijah's god, in the destruction of the 
prophets of Baal at Mt. Carmel. It is also proved 



12 THE SOUTH WIND 

by the Hand that wrote Belshazzar's doom over his 
festal board and on his palace wall. 

It has been by resisting the wrong influences, 
' ' when the south wind was blowing gently, ' ' that the 
great deeds in history have been wrought, and the 
sweetest songs of the poets have been sung. The one 
hundred and thirty-seventh Psalm, although so beau- 
tiful, is a song of sorrow and captivity. It shows 
strength of character in the heart and soul of the 
author. » 

"By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, 
Yea, we wept when we remembered Zion. "We hang- 
ed our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof, 
for there they that carried us away captive, required 
of us a song, and they that wasted us required of us 
mirth, saying : Sing us one of the songs of Zion. How 
shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land. If 
1 forget thee, Jerusalem, let my right hand forget 
her cunning. If I do not remember thee, let my 
tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth; if I do not 
prefer Jerusalem above my chief joy. " These are 
bold words and true, breathing both loyalty and 
earnest devotion. The Psalmist's loyalty to the 
home he had been forced to leave was both beautiful 
and commendable. But there is a loyalty that you 
owe to your children, and parents, and friends and 
neighbors. And that loyalty requires you to be zeal- 
ous and careful and watchful of their safety. One 
summer day, a father took his child into the forest 



THE SOUTH WIND 73 

with him to enjoy a day of rest. He finally yielded 
to the stupor that came on him, and went to sleep. 
When he awoke, he missed his child. He hurriedly 
began a search for the little one, and soon came to 
a precipice, and looking down, there saw the object 
of his search, crushed, mangled and dead, at the base 
of the cliff. His loyalty to his own child required 
that he carefully guard it from danger, but the 
soothing nature of his environment in the forest was 
to him the south wind blowing gently, and while he 
was wrapped in the luxurious embrace of slumber, 
his child fell to its death. There are parents even 
now slumbering who are wrapped in the arms of 
luxury, wealth, and worldliness, seemingly uncon- 
scious of danger, while their children are surrounded 
on every side by temptation and sin, and exposed to 
eternal death. " Awake! thou that sleepest"!! 

The south wind blowing gently is the zephyr of 
ease and luxury, wafted from the tropics of worldli- 
ness, bearing on its wings the delicious fragrance 
and velvety touch of the beautiful southland ; and it 
tempts with the offer of sinful pleasures. It has 
blown its seductive perfumes over many lives, into 
many homes, and into many nations. Its soothing 
touch and quiet soughing undermined the founda- 
tions of the Roman Empire. For love of pleasure, 
ease and luxury brought to Rome the destruction 
that war and sword could not accomplish. In the 
path of the scented fragrance of the south wind 



74 THE SOUTH WIND 

blowing gently is strewn the wreckage of the years 
and of the centuries. Its poisonous and miasmic 
tainted breath has touched the cheek of maidenly 
beauty and aided the tempter to accomplish her ruin. 
The seducive sweetness of the south wind blowing 
gently has stupefied young men and held them help- 
less in the social whirl of sinful indulgences. Pos- 
sibly some of you could go to some sod covered and 
grass grown mound in the cemetery, or city of the 
dead, and, standing there by some familiar grave, 
could repeat the story of a ruined and wasted life, 
in this one sentence: "When the south wind was 
blowing gently." 

In the less agreeable and colder north wind, there 
may be more safety than in the south wind blowing 
gently. And your own success and happiness may 
depend on your ability to resist the enticing pleas- 
ures that seem to follow in the wake of the south 
wind blowing gently. Turn out of its seducive path 
now. Sinful habits have already fastened their fet- 
ters as shackles on your soul. If you are even now 
powerless to break away, accept the help of Jesus 
who is able to save to the uttermost all who come 
to God through Him. He can reveal to you visions of 
splendor, and lead you into joys of which you have 
never dreamed. In His presence is fulness of joy; 
and in His right hand are pleasures forevermore. 
His skillful hands can untie the cords that hold you 
fast. Yea, His deft fingers can weave the delicate 



THE SOUTH WIND 75 

web of the Aurora Borealis, and warp it as a muffler 
around the throat of the cold North. And they can 
just as deftly weave a web of holiness for you. He 
is also able to close the lion's mouth. Accept His 
help now, before the teeth of the ravenous lion of 
sin lacerate your flesh. He can loosen the coils of 
the serpent of sinful pleasures that now hold you in 
the bondage of sin. He can snap the fetters of evil 
habits that now hold you as with bands of steel. 
Yea! He can set you free!! Jesus said: "If there- 
fore the Son shall make you free, you shall be free 
indeed." Jesus also said: "If ye abide in me, and 
My words abide in you, ask whatsoever ye will, and 
it shall be done unto you." "And whatsoever ye 
shall ask in My name, that will I do, that the Father 
may be glorified in the Son. If ye shall ask any- 
thing in My name, that will I do." Meet the con- 
ditions of these promises, and accept and appropriate 
the offered blessings now ; and it will never be truth- 
fully said of you that you sailed from the Fair 
Havens of safety, "When the south wind was blow- 
ing gently." 



V 

KINDNESS 

S. W. BRAN DOM 

"And the barbarians showed us no common kind- 
ness :" Acts 28:2. (Authorized version.) 

Two weeks had passed since Paul and two hun- 
dred and seventy-five others sailed from the Fair 
Havens on the coast of the island of Crete. They 
reached Malta (or Melita) which is about six hun- 
dred and twenty miles west of Crete. Malta is about 
sixty miles south of Sicily, and Sicily is south west 
of the extreme southern point of Italy. Crete is 
south east of the peninsula of Greece. From the 
Fair Havens, on the island of Crete, they had gone 
west six hundred and twenty miles to Malta. They 
had a troublesome time. Their sailing was over a 
tempestuous sea, driven by the storm and much of 
the trip was through darkness, and they could see 
neither the sun, moon, nor stars. So great were 
their fears, that they had not partaken of food dur- 
ing the entire two weeks of their terrible voyage. 
But, at the urgent request of Paul, they all ate some 
food. And when it was day, they tried to enter a 
bay, intending thus to reach the beach, and they got 
into a place where two seas met, and the vessel was 
76 



KINDNESS 77 

grounded. And when the ship began to break in 
pieces, some who could swim plunged into the sea, 
and swam to shore ; others on planks, still others on 
boxes, and some on other things from the ship, and 
in one way and another, all reached the beach. The 
land was the island of Malta. It has a land surface 
of about a hundred square miles, so that if reduced 
to a square, it would be ten miles square. The cli- 
mate is mild and the skies are so clear that Mt. Etna, 
a hundred and twenty-five miles to the north on the 
island of Sicily, can be distinctly seen from Malta. 
The land is really a beautiful island garden, where 
grow the richest fruits, such as olives, oranges and 
figs. There is also now as there was then a copious 
supply of honey on the island. 

The two hundred and seventy-six men escaped 
the perils of the sea with only their lives and the 
.scanty clothing on their bodies. But in writing of 
it, Paul says: "The barbarians showed us no com- 
mon kindness : for they kindled a fire, and received 
us all, because of the present rain, and because of the 
cold." 

By the term "barbarians" we are not to under- 
stand that the inhabitants of Malta were savages. 
Not by any means ! But that they did not speak the 
Greek language, i. e. the Greek was not their native 
tongue ; although the Greek was then the language of 
learning and education. 

The hospitality of the Maltese inhabitants was put 



78 KINDNESS 

to a severe test. The shipwrecked company of two 
hundred and seventy-six men remained on the island 
for three months. But we find nothing to indicate 
that the natives became impatient, or wavered in any 
manner, in their hospitality. On the contrary, we 
find in Acts 28:10, this language: "Honored us 
with many honors ; and when we sailed, they put on 
board such things as we needed." No wonder Paul 
says: "And the barbarians showed us no common 
kindness. ' ' 

What is kindness? Possibly you can recognize it 
when you find it, and yet you may not be able to 
give a good definition of it. "Webster's definition 
of kindness is: "Good will; benevolence; a kind 
act." But some terms are difficult to define. What 
is kindness? 

Kindness is a variation of the theme in the divine 
music of love. It is neither the pinching cold of Jan- 
uary, nor the burning heat of July. It is rather a 
blending of the exhilarating animation of the Spring- 
time and the soothing mildness of Indian Summer. 
It is the rippling laughter of June mingled with the 
pathetic sighs of November. It is the stimulus of 
May interwoven with the mellowness of October. 
Kindness is the sunshine of the soul painting a rain- 
bow of beauty shining through the shower of tears. 
Without kindness, the roses would fade from the 
fair cheeks of womanhood, and the valorous senti- 
ment of chivalry would no longer find a lodgment 



KINDNESS 79 

in the breast of man. Childish laughter would cease 
to ripple through the sacred precincts of the home,and 
the domestic joys would be only relics of an unre- 
turning past. And the treasures of the family ties 
would no longer cluster around the parapets of the 
home. Kindness is not the violence of the hurricane, 
but rather the gentleness of the summer breeze. The 
cruel northeast wind may give a flap of his powerful 
wings, and the next morning, the Atlantic coast, 
from Labrador to the Florida Keys, is strewn with 
the wreckage of a nation's shipping. But kindness 
is like the gentle swaying of the southwest wind that 
issues forth from some floral tinted bower of the 
skies, and all nature responds with a chorus of wel- 
come at its approach. The brooks bubble with joy. 
The rivers ripple with merry laughter. The lakes 
glow with silvern beauty. The luxuriant poppies 
spread their enticing blossoms, the gardens array 
themselves in bloom, the orchards adorn themselves 
in their gayest colors, the fields of grain dress them- 
selves first in a robe of green, next in garments of 
silver, then in a mantle of golden. The trees rustle 
their verdant foliage in token of joy. The moun- 
tains bathe their peaks in the warm sunshine and 
the hills smile with gladness in token of thanksgiving 
and praise. Real kindness cannot long be counter- 
feited, although it may be feigned for a time. There- 
fore, while we cheerfully clasp true kindness to our 
breast, we cautiously delay the loving embrace until 



80 KINDNESS 

the claims for recognition have been established by 
the evidence, and supported by satisfactory creden- 
tials. In fact, so many feet are trimmed and fash- 
ioned to fit Cinderella's slippers, that we hesitate 
long before we hail the Princess. 

Kindness is the perfume of the soul. And its 
aroma is sweeter than the distilled essence of all the 
aromatic plants and fragrant flowers. Eeal kindness 
is not like the Morning Glory, which spreads its blos- 
soms in the early morning and by noon has folded its 
petals and presents a withered and faded appearance 
in the glare of the noon-day sun. But kindness is 
more like the blossoming Petunias, whose flowers 
rival the beauty and freshness of the Morning Glo- 
ries at dawn, and are just as attractive at noon as at 
the dawn, and then their petals are still as glowing 
with beauty at sunset as at noon or at the dawn. 

Kindness is not spasmodic like the flow of some 
natural fountains which we call intermittent springs, 
but is as steady and constant as the unceasing flow 
of the cool mountain spring. Its unfailing supply 
of blessing continues unremitting in both fair and 
stormy weather, and through gloomy as well as bright 
days. And the truest kindness finds its fullest ex- 
pression in our Lord and Savior, the world's Re- 
deemer. When the clouds of adversity roll thick 
and ominous, and the thunders of opposition are 
echoing from mountain to mountain, and reverberat- 
ing from hill top to hill top, and the flashing light- 



KINDNESS 81 

nings of fierce attack are shooting around like ar- 
rows from the countless bows of gathering archers, 
His artistic hand paints on the canvas of the moun- 
tain mists that wonderful master piece, the Kainbow, 
and hangs it over the pathway of the raging storm. 

If this principle of kindnes obtained universal 
recognition, it would dismount every battery, un- 
wheel every cannon, dismantle every military fort, 
dull every sword, break every spear, splinter every 
foeman's lance, unhorse every cavalryman, and ren- 
der worthless every powder magazine. For gun 
powder would be needed no longer except for blast- 
ing purposes, and for pyrotechnic display, or fire 
works. Not only would warfare be a savage mem- 
ory, but the drinking saloon and the wine room an- 
nex, and the gambling hall and the brothel would be 
unknown and never mentioned any more, except as 
facts of history which humanity had passed by, and 
left behind, in the moral progress of the race. 

Kindness, like the primitive rose and the orange, 
can be improved and developed by painstaking care 
and culture. The thistle, the thorn tree, and. the 
wild briar all grow spontaneously; and also the cac- 
tus, the yucca, or soap weed, and the pestiferous 
sand-burr of the western prairies all grow wild. But 
the variegated dahlias, the many varieties of carna- 
tions, and the magnificent red rose, now blooming 
so luxuriantly in the conservatory, with its thickly 
matted masses of beautiful petals which seem to have 



82 KINDNESS 

been dipped in the blood and carnage of belligerant 
strife, had to be cared for, cultivated and developed. 

I wish all the Lord's children would pray the 
Father above to plant the germ of heavenly kindness 
in every heart, and then give all of us the needed 
grace and sanctification with works to care for, cul- 
tivate and develop it, until it attains the glowing 
beauty of full maturity. 

This world would be much happier if all of us 
emulated the example of the Prussian King who re- 
ceived, as a present from the Russian Emperor, the 
root of a rare flower. He soon had the root planted 
in the Island Royal Gardens. The gardener was 
required to watch it, and finally it bloomed into full 
glory and beauty. On three days each week, the 
people were permitted to visit the gardens, and one 
day a young man gathered that flower and fastened 
it to a buttonhole. But he w r as arrested while cross- 
ing the ferry. The gardener asked the King to 
cease allowing the people to visit the Island Royal 
Gardens. But the King said: "Shall I deny the. 
thousands of good people of my country the priv- 
ilege of seeing this garden because one visitor has 
done wrong ? No ! Let them come and see the 
beautiful grounds." Then the gardener wanted the 
King to take the name of the offending youth. But 
the King said, "No! My memory is very tenacious, 
and I do not want to have in mv mind the name of 



KINDNESS 83 

the offender, lest it should hinder me granting him 
a favor some other time." 

We should all look upon kindness as a rare and 
royal flower, not to be plucked criminally, nor to be 
surreptitiously gathered from some royal gardens 
and fastened to a buttonohle, but to be placed in the 
vase within the heart, where its luxuriant and richly 
colored blososms will purify and adorn with super- 
nal beauty our nature, and the aromatic sweetness 
and delicious fragracne of the blossoms of kindness 
will not only bless us in this present life, but will 
cling to us and enrich us in the future life through a 
never ending eternity. 

It was kindness in the great heart of Grant at 
Appomattox that made him hand back Lee's sword, 
with the words, "It could not be worn by a braver 
man." There was a tender feeling of kindness in 
the heart of Alexander H. Stevens of Georgia, and 
possibly no lovelier man ever exchanged Earth for 
Heaven. A Senator's wife invited him to come and 
see her dead canary bird. But he probably thought 
of the poor bird's hard life in captivity as a caged 
prisoner, when birds so much love and enjoy liberty 
in the full air of unrestrained freedom, and so Stev- 
ens said, "No, I could not look at the poor thing 
without crying." 

The opposite of kindness is cruelty. These oppo- 
sites are shown in actions that may appear unim- 
portant. William Cowper was familiar with this 



84 KINDNESS 

simple method of determining character, for he said 
that he would not trust a man who would needlessly 
crush a worm. 

A disregard of the claims of kindness leads not 
only to suffering, but also to injustice and oppres- 
sion. This is true in both private and official life. 
Some time ago, an officer in one of our cities said : 
"Some place must be found for saloons," and then 
he voted to license another saloon on a street that 
already had forty-three saloons, four of them being 
on the nearby corners. A woman who was opposing 
the saloon license said: "We have forty-three sa- 
loons on our street now. We never see a policeman. 
In fact we have forgotten what one looks like. There 
are carousals and fights every night, so that sleep is 
impossible. And every morning we have to clear 
our front door yards of empty whiskey flasks and 
beer bottles/ ' After hearing the recital of the con- 
ditions that have made that street a murderer's row 
and a training school for Hell, the police board, with 
self assumed gravity, proceeded to license the forty- 
fourth saloon on that street. Yet, when a few Chris- 
tian men and women take a position in opposition 
to the shameful and criminal conditions that are 
directly traceable to the saloons, we are accused of 
trying to interfere with personal liberty. When a 
grand jury indicts a man for murder, and a prose- 
cuting attorney files an information against some one 
for arson, I suppose the accused men are just as in- 



KINDNESS 85 

dignant because their personal liberty is endangered, 
and the indictment or information is proof positive 
that the grand jury and the prosecuting attorney 
are trying to interfere with personal liberty! No 
weight seems to have been given to the right of the 
few Christian residents of that street to be secure in 
their homes, and to be free to enjoy their homes un- 
molested and unhindered and undisturbed by rioters 
and others that may violate the peace and quiet of 
the neighborhood. But the law abiding and Chris- 
tian residents on that street are given no protection 
from the disturbers of the peace that patronize the 
saloons and dens of infamy and brothels that throng 
murderer's row, unchecked and unhindered by police 
interference. True liberty is crushed out there, be- 
cause the officers hold and maintain, that /'some 
place must be found for saloons." 

About the time the license was granted for the 
forty-fourth saloon on that street, a live wire fell 
from a post in that city during a rain storm, and it 
wrapped around the arm and neck of a man, result- 
ing in his death. The live wire incident was pub- 
lished in the city papers as an item of news, and by 
this time, it may have been made the basis of a claim 
for damages by the relatives of the man who was 
injured. But on that street, with its forty-four sa- 
loons, men and women are debauched every night, 
and immortal souls are trained for Hell, and the coil- 
ing wires of lust, and vice, and crime, are hanging 



86 KINDNESS 

loose both day and night. There, the low theatre, 
the immoral resort, and the Godless market in women 
and human souls runs wide open, day and night, and 
not a policeman is ever seen on that street, even to 
arrest the participants in the fights that occur every 
night. And the city papers that so eagerly pub- 
lished the live wire incident as an item of news, evi- 
dently regard the crime, and debauchery, and sin, 
along murderer's row of so regular occurrence as 
not to be regarded as an item of news at all. Cruelty 
seems to have succeeded in obtaining the sanction 
and protection of the officers of the law. But there 
is no kindness in protecting cruelty in any form. 

Kindness breathes its beautiful melodies and rap- 
turous harmonies all through the sacred Bible. It is 
interwoven into the meshes of Genesis, then followed 
up in the Book of Joshua, encircled in the pure arms 
of Ruth, attested in solemn form by Samuel, embla- 
zoned in beauty in the Psalms, and crystalized in the 
coronet of the four gospels. Then its radiance flashes 
in our church history as found in the recorded Acts 
of the Apostles, and in the Epistles to the primitive 
churches. The Angel in the Apocalypse took a reed 
and measured heaven, but never had the boldness 
nor presumption to even attempt to measure the 
length and breadth, and depth and height of kind- 
ness. As the love of God is as high and deep and 
wide as human . ;need, so kindness, which is a varia- 
tion of the theme in the divine music of love, is as 



KINDNESS 87 

high and deep and wide as human sorrow. 

During the fortnight of tossing on the stormy bil- 
lows of the Mediterranean Sea, Paul was the recipi- 
ent of the wonderful and gracious kindness of God. 
For an angel of God stood by him and said: "Fear 
not, Paul; thou must stand before Caesar: and lo, 
God hath granted thee all them that sail with thee." 
And Paul said to the other men in the ship, "Where 
fore, sirs, be of good cheer: for I believe God, that 
it shall be even so as it hath been spoken unto me. 
But we "must be cast upon a certain island." Thus 
the lesson shows that Paul received the kindness of 
God, and passed the blessing on to the other souls 
that were with him. In Acts, 27 :36, we find 
this language : ' ' Then were they all of good cheer, 
and themselves also took food." We find in 
Acts, 27:44, "that they all escaped to the land." 
And, my friend, if the tempest is now sweeping over 
you, just accept the kindness of a loving Savior. Let 
Him take you to the hospitable beach of some friend- 
ly island more beautiful than Malta or Melita. There, 
fruits grow that are more luscious than the products 
of tropical clime, and more nourishing than the de- 
lectable honey of Malta, and the supply is inex- 
haustible, copious and abundant. 

When Bonpland was studying the flora of the 
Ancles, he climbed one day to the summit of an ex- 
tinct volcano. There, thousands of feet above the 
sea level, and far above the vegetation of the region 



88 KINDNESS 

round about, he found a solitary flower growing on 
the rim of the volcano. A little deposit of mellow 
earth was there, and possibly a seed had been 
dropped there by some bird in its flight, and so the 
flower grew. And although you may be on the very 
rim of the crater of the volcano of eternal doom, yet, 
if in your heart there is one little mellow spot where 
the seeds of kindness can find a lodgment, and ger- 
minate, and grow, accept the seed of kindness now, 
which God in His infinite love and mercy offers to 
you, and let it grow until it blossoms in beauty. 
For its beautiful petals will make your life glow 
with splendor here, and the aroma, and fragrance, 
and sweetness of that never failing flower will per- 
fume your pathway from earth to heaven ; and at the 
gate of the eternal city, that flower will be your 
passport into the blissful abode of supernal joy. 
Yea, the flower that I invite you to accept is the 
Eose of Sharon, and the Lilly of the Valley, tied 
together with the unfading Smilax of Love ; and this 
heavenly boquet is even now fresh from the peren- 
nially beautiful Koyal Gardens of God. This is a 
royal flower of kindness which now, in God's name, 
I am offering to you. 



VI 

AN ADDRESS ON SOWING AND 
REAPING 

S. W. BRANDOM 

Text, Galatians, 6:7-8: "Be not deceived; God is 
not mocked; for whatsoever a man sows, the same 
shall he also reap; because he that sows to his flesh 
shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that sows 
to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life eternal." 
( Worrell's Translation). 

I have made a study of some people who do not 
like the Bible, and I find that the trouble is not 
with the Bible, but with the life of those who hate 
the Bible. It is amazing how folks will talk about 
the Bible, when they know very little about it. Look 
at the folks who abuse the Bible ! Scarcely any of 
them ever look into a Bible at all. They have heard 
some scoffing, sneering hypocrite, that claimed to be 
somebody when he wasn't, and claimed to know 
something when he didn't, and they act like a par- 
rot in repeating what they have heard. They have 
listened to the sneering moral leper, or the intellec- 
tual montebank who caviled at the Bible, and with- 
out looking into it at all, they are continually dis- 
seminating what the scoffer said. When the noted 

89 



90 SOWING AND REAPING 

infidel, Wilmot, was dying, he put his hand on the 
Bible and said: "The only thing against that book 
is a bad life." That infidel told the truth. The 
man, with the record of a bad life, hates the Bible 
because it condemns him. It reveals the inexcusable 
and sinful nature of sin in evil men's lives, and men 
do not like to read their own condemnation. That 
is the reason so many men do not read the Bible. 
Some say they can not understand it. That admis- 
sion corroborates the statements of the Bible itself. 
See Daniel, 12:10. "Many shall be purified, and 
made white, and tried ; but the wicked shall do wick- 
edly; and none of the wicked shall understand." 
When you say you cannot understand the Bible, you 
at once classify yourself as wicked, and furnish liv- 
ing proof of the truth of the Bible, for it says, "None 
of the wicked shall understand." There is a reason 
for your not understanding the Bible. "When a man 
is living in sin, God does not reveal His secret 
thoughts and purposes to that man. The promise 
of knowledge is to the one who wills to obey God. 
See John 7:17, (Worrell's Translation), "If any one 
wills to do His will, he shall know of the teaching." 
Jesus said, according to John 14:21, "He w T ho has 
My commandments and keeps them, he it is that 
loves Me ; and he that loves Me will be loved by My 
Father, and I will love him, and will manifest My- 
self to him." 

Men do not reveal their secret thoughts to their 



SOWING AND REAPING 91 

enemies, and you that are enemies of God have no 
right to expect God to reveal His thoughts to you. 
Wicked men question the authority of the Bible, just 
as condemned criminals question the authority of the 
court that sentenced them. Who wrote the Bible? 
Did bad men write it? What a strange thing it 
would be if bad men wrote in a book their own con- 
demnation! They don't do that way now a days. 
They would be the last persons in the world to write 
their own condemnation. No ! Bad men did not 
write the Bible. But if good men wrote it, it cannot 
be a bad book, for good men would not write a bad 
book. Consequently, the trouble is not with the 
Bible, but with the lives of the folks who hate the 
Bible. When a man loves God, he loves the Bible 
too. For, to the man that loves God, the Bible is 
meat and drink, food and strength, to his soul. 

"Be not deceived." The devil has deceived a lot 
of folks. He has persuaded them that the Christian 
life is a hard life. But he is a liar, and the father of 
lies. And when the devil gets you to believe that 
he is an easier master to serve than God, he gets you 
to believe a lie. Jesus says, in Matthew, 11 :30," My 
yoke is easy, and My burden is light." On the 
other hand, see Proverbs, 13:15, "The way of the 
transgressor is hard." 

You can't blot out these truths. Think for a 
moment of the text about the transgressor. You can 
close the Bible, and look in the daily papers, any 



92 SOWING AND REAPING 

day in the year, and from the pages before you, you 
can see many proofs that, "The way of the trans- 
gressor is hard." The statement, that the service 
of God is a hard life, and the service of the devil an 
easy life, is a bare faced lie, and it ought Jo be driven 
back into hell where it came from the throat of 
Satan himself. That lie, sent red hot from hell, has 
led millions of immortal souls to their eternal ruin. 
If you could visit the Tombs prison, in New York 
City, you could find a little iron bridge running from 
the police court, where men are tried, to the prison 
cell. In letters of iron, on that bridge, is the sen- 
tence: "The way of the transgressor is hard." If 
you could destroy the iron bridge, and destroy the 
Bible, that text would still remain an eternal truth. 
So the Bible is true, whether men believe it or not. 
It is written in the very lives of men. On the other 
side of that iron bridge are the words, "A bridge of 
sighs." A man of God, who has since gone to Hea- 
ven, once asked an officer what they put that up 
there for. The officer said that most of the young 
men who went over that bridge, went over it weep- 
ing; and so they called it the bridge of sighs. The 
man of God asked what made them put up that other 
sentence, "The way of the transgressor is hard." 
The officer said, "Well, it is hard. If you had any- 
thing to do with this prison, you would believe that 
text; 'The way of the transgressor is hard. 7 " 
God's service is not hard. The trouble with those 



SOWING AND REAPING 93 

who find God's service hard, is, that they tried to 
serve God without getting God's nature. For a man 
to serve God, he must get God's nature by being 
born anew. Romans 8:7-8. "Because the mind of 
the flesh is enmity against God ; for it is not subject 
to the law of God, neither, indeed, can it be; and 
those who are in the flesh cannot please God." For 
a man whose nature is only the fleshy nature to try 
to serve God in the Spirit, is as difficult a task as to 
try to jump over the moon. The natural man has not 
the nature to serve God and please Him. The natur- 
al man must repent of sin, and "Be born anew." 
For, "Unless one be born anew, he cannot see the 
Kingdom of God." This new birth is not natural, 
but Spiritual. It puts into a man a nature that he 
did not have before. The new nature is God's na- 
ture. With that nature, you will find that serving 
God is easy. Then you will agree with Jesus, that 
His yoke is easy, and His burden is light. Romans, 
8:8-9, "Those who are in the flesh cannot please 
God. But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, 
if, indeed, the Spirit of God is dwelling in you. And, 
if any one has not the Spirit of Christ, he is not 
His." When you have the Spirit of Christ, you will 
find it easy to do right and serve God, for the Spirit 
of God dwelling in you will lift your very body up 
into some influence that will keep you above the 
death dealing sins of the present time. Romans, 
8:11, "And, if the Spirit of Him Who raised up 



94 SOWING AND REAPING 

Jesus from the dead dwelleth in you, He Who raised 
up Christ Jesus from the dead will make alive your 
mortal bodies through His Spirit dwelling in you." 
"Be not deceived, God is not mocked. For whatso- 
ever a man sows, the same shall he also reap." 

The noted Mr. Spurgeon used the story of a tyrant 
ordering a subject to come into his presence, and 
when the subject appeared, the tyrant asked the 
man his occupation. The man answered that he was 
a blacksmith. The tyrant then ordered him to go 
and make a chain of a certain length, and to bring 
it to him on a certain day. The tyrant did not give 
him anything to make the chain with, but the chain 
was made; and on the appointed day, the black- 
smith, with his chain, appeared before the tyrant. 
The tyrant told him to take that chain and make it 
twice that length. The man obeyed, but had to have 
his friends help him carry it into the presence of the 
tyrant. The tyrant ordered his men who were 
standing near, to take the blacksmith, and bind him 
hand and foot, and cast him into a dungeon. That 
is what every man, who is serving the devil, is doing. 
If you are serving the devil, you are making the 
chain that will bind you, hand and foot, so that you 
can offer no resistance when the order is given to 
cast you into the dungeon. For example, you begin 
drinking liquor. Some one steps up and tells you 
that you are in danger. You sneer, and scorn, and 
laugh at the suggestion of danger. When some of 



SOWING AND REAPING 95 

us want you to let liquor alone, you accuse us of try- 
ing to take your liberty from you. That little word 
liberty has been much overworked. Every man 
ought to have the liberty to do right, without becom- 
ing an anarchist and doing wrong. In the name of 
liberty you drink, and drink again, and little by 
little, you gradually make the chain, until, before 
you are aware of it, the tyrant of sin has you bound, 
hand and foot, with the chain of your own making. 
Some years ago, a country boy, in opposition to his 
parents' wishes and protests, went to the nearby 
town, and began the saloon business. The memory 
of home, and the prayers of his mother, disturbed 
his conscience. But he kept on in his vile career, 
and drank heavily to drown his qualms of conscience. 
At the end of a long spree, delirium tremens came 
on him. In one of his attacks of tremens, he got 
behind his bed. His friends were unable to hold him 
in bed; and over next to the wall, behind the bed, 
he was at work, as if mixing drinks, and thus he 
died. He reaped what he sowed. How much better 
it would have been for him if he had sowed differ- 
ently! I read somewhere of another boy who was 
seeking an apprenticeship. The foreman offered 
him a glass of beer. But the boy said, "I never 
drink that stuff." The foreman said, "We never 
have teetotalers here. You'll either have this glass 
of beer inside or outside." The boy answered, "I 
brought my clean jacket with me, and a good char- 



96 SOWING AND REAPING 

acter. You may spoil my jacket, but you shall not 
spoil my character. ' ' Such a firm stand is neces- 
sary in these days of soliciting vice. Some years 
ago, a man was in the throes of delirium tremens. 
He thought the devil was coming after him at one 
o'clock in the night, and had told a preacher so. 
The preacher tried to argue him out of the opinion 
that the devil would call for him at that time. But 
when his efforts failed the preacher got six men to 
stay with the poor victim of drink. At one o'clock, 
those six men could not hold the poor fellow in bed. 
He exclaimed, "Look there! See him! There they 
are ! They are after me ! He is going to take me to 
hell ! He is after me ! ' ' And thus the man raved in 
his wild delirium. He was reaping what he sowed. 
Doubtless there was a time when he thought God 
would be a hard master to serve, and so he was de- 
ceived into serving the devil. But he found the devil 
to be a hard master. For "The way of the trans- 
gressor is hard." Whenever a man lets the devil 
deceive him, disaster is the inevitable result. "Be 
not deceived, God is not mocked. For whatsoever 
a man sows, the same shall he also reap." At the 
Paris exposition, many years ago, a painting was ex- 
hibited, representing a man sowing tares. He was 
of a hideous countenance, and was taking out a 
handful of seeds, and sowing them all around. Every 
where a tare fell, there grew up some vile reptile, 
and the reptiles were crawling up on his body, and 



SOWING AND REAPING 97 

all around him. The painting also represented a 
forest thicket in the distance, and wild beasts were 
prowling around the borders of the thicket, and they 
had that fiendish look. Oh ! What a fearful thing to 
sow the tares of sin ; for the reaping time is sure to 
come. And with the examples of current and past 
history all around them, men and women, boys and 
girls, still go on sowing the tares of sin, with a lib- 
eral hand. And then they sometimes scoff when we 
warn them, and tell them, that "Whatsoever a man 
sows the same shall he also reap." But the reaping 
time comes soon. 

Years ago, in the State of New Jersey, a man was 
on trial for his life. At the conclusion of the oral 
arguments and the instructions, the jury went out to 
consider their verdict. For four long days the jury 
remained out. During the long trial in court, little 
children climbed up on their father's knees, and said, 
"Papa, Papa, come home. Mamma cries so much 
now you are away." The law had that man in its 
grip. He was simply reaping what he sowed. In a 
burst of anger, he toop a weapon, and shot down an- 
other man. It is so bad to see innocent children in 
a home suffer for the sins of their parents. Even 
the carelessness of parents brings sorrow, and even 
death, to their children. There was a man in Ten- 
nessee, who made a practice of capturing rattle- 
snakes and selling them to circus men. He caught a 
rattlesnake that had fourteen rattles and a button. 



98 SOWING AND REAPING 

He put the rattler in a glass jar, with a glass cover 
over it. He was cutting wood, while his little son 
was playing near. Unobserved by the father, the 
boy slipped back the cover of the glass jar. The 
rattlesnake wriggled out, and struck the boy on the 
cheek. The boy ran to his father and said, "The 
rattler bit me." The father ran to the rattler, and 
chopped it to pieces. Then he took his knife, and 
cut a piece of flesh out of the boy's cheek, then put 
his own lips to the wound, and did his best to suck 
out the poison. But his efforts were without suc- 
cess. He watched his son's eyes. They became 
bloodshot. He saw his son's body swell to two or 
three times its normal size. He saw the boy's lips 
as they became dry and parched. Then his son 
gasped and died. The father, in his mental agony, 
exclaimed, "Oh God, I would not give little Jim for 
all the rattlers that ever crawled out of the moun- 
tains." And right now some of you fathers are 
guilty of neglect, carelessness, and other sins that 
expose your sons to danger and death. Mothers, 
some of you are guilty of neglecting your daughters, 
and leaving them exposed to the temptations and 
dangers of sin, while you are preoccupied with your 
own worldly pursuit of pleasure and fashion and so- 
ciety. "Be not deceived; God is not mocked; for 
whatsoever a man sows, the same shall he also reap ; 
because he that sows to his flesh shall of the flesh 
reap corruption ; but he that sows to the Spirit shall 



SOWING AND REAPING 99 

of the Spirit reap life eternal." Many of you are 
already reaping the fruits of sin. Now quit sowing 
sin and sow to the Spirit, that you may reap life 
eternal. As sure as the bite of the rattlesnake fa- 
tally poisoned the physical being of little Jim, son of 
the Tennessee farmer, just that certain will the sin, 
sowed in your life, fatally poison your moral and 
spiritual being. The virus of sin has already pene- 
trated your nature, and there is only one remedy for 
the sin, only one antidote to its death dealing poison. 
If you want to be healed, and if you want your 
children healed of the poison of sin, apply the last 
part of my text, and apply it now. "He that sows 
to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life eternal." 
Quit sowing sin, and sow to the Spirit now. I urge 
you to come forward, while the choir sings. Sow to 
the Spirit, and claim, and obtain the healing that is 
promised. If you sow to the Spirit, you will of the 
Spirit reap life eternal. Come without a moment's 
delay. 



VII 

CAPTURING THE COLONEL 

This is related to the subject of Sowing and Reaping 
S. W. BRANDOM 

Text: Galatians, 6:7-8. "Be not deceived; God 
is not mocked; for whatsoever a man sows, the same 
shall he also reap; because he that sows to his flesh 
shall of the flesh reap corruption ; but he that sows 
to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life eternal." 
(Worrell's Translation). 

A man reaps what he sows. If he sows wheat, he 
expects to reap wheat. If he sows oats, he expects 
to reap oats. If he plants potatoes, he doesn't ex- 
pect to reap watermelons. If he sows turnip seed, 
he doesn't expect to reap a harvest of grapes. When 
he plants corn, he expects to reap a harvest of corn. 
100 



CAPTURING THE COLONEL 101 

Maybe you say that a man sometimes sows wheat, 
and at the harvest his crop is cheat. That is like the 
case mentioned in the Bible of an enemy sowing 
tares while the owner of the field slept. Maybe you 
say wheat turns to cheat. But you are mistaken, if 
you say that. Paul said, in Philippians 2:12, "Work 
out your own salvation with fear and trembling." 
There is a reason for working out your salvation. 
The enemy sows tares, and you must work out your 
salvation, if you have any, in order to keep out the 
tares of vice, and prevent the weeds of sin from 
choking it out. The weeds have to be killed. "What- 
soever a man sows, the same shall he also reap." A 
young man may say that he must sow his wild oats. 
But just as sure as he sows wild oats, he will have to 
reap wild oats. This truth of reaping what you sow 
is verified all through life, and is proven by the facts 
of current and past history. 

CAPTURING THE COLONEL 

Before the internal disturbances in Mexico began 
some years ago, there lived in Old Sonora (one of 
the northern states of the republic), a family of 
great wealth. The family that I refer to was the 
Senior Talementes, with his wife and their two sons. 
They owned a large tract of land, employed many 
laborers, and wielded great influence in their state. 

In a federal raid led by Col. Chiapas, 
they were arrested in the early days of the insurrec- 



102 CAPTURING THE COLONEL 

tion. At the beginning of the internal disturbances 
they were suspected of revolutionary leanings. By 
the order of Col. Chiapas, the Senior Talementes and 
his two sons were executed in sight of their haci- 
enda. Before their execution, the wife and mother 
called on Col. Chiapas, and pleaded for the lives of 
her husband and sons. Her petitions were of no 
avail. He sneered at her. She soon found that she 
was pleading with a man who was brutalized with 
drink. Later she heard the shots which sent her 
husband and sons into eternity. Her efforts and 
pleadings had failed to save the lives of those she 
loved best in this world. After the death of her 
loved ones, she published an offer of a reward, of 
twenty thousand dollars in gold, for the capture and 
delivery into her hands of Col. Chiapas. However, 
no one could penetrate the guard of federal soldiers 
that constantly surrounded the Colonel. Then the 
widow gathered about her the employes and friends 
of the Talementes family, and at their head she took 
the field. She commanded them with great skill in 
a number of battles and skirmishes. Her forces 
grew to be one of the largest revolutionary bands in 
old Sonora, and all the time she was drawing nearer 
to the command of Colonel Chiapas. Until the sec- 
ond week of May, 1911, she kept getting nearer to 
Col. Chiapas 's command. On the night of May 9, 
1911, she captured Colonel Chiapas. With dignity, 
and with great satisfaction, she took him prisoner. 



CAPTURING THE COLONEL 103 

When morning came, May 10, 1911, just as the rim 
of the sun glowed above the eastern hirizon, the 
widow Talementes gave a sharp command. There 
was a quick roll of fire from a dozen rifles, and the 
body of Colonel Chiapas fell, crumpled up, and lay 
quivering at the edge of a newly made trench. One 
of the men of the firing squad stepped out and ad- 
vanced to the trench, turned the body over with his 
foot, saw that ten bullets had pierced the body, and 
then tumbled it into the trench. Colonel Chiapas 
had reaped what he sowed. "For whatsoever a man 
sows, the same shall he also reap." If you are de- 
ceitful, and deceive others, you will reap deceit, for 
others will deceive you. If you sow cruelty to oth- 
ers, you will reap cruelty, for others will be cruel to 
you. If you teach your children to disobey God, you 
will reap disobedience in your own children, for they 
will disobey you. Many a man is broken hearted 
because his children were disobedient to him after 
he had taught them to disobey God. He is simply 
reaping what he sowed, "For whatsoever a man 
sows, the same shall he also reap." 

There was a wealthy man whom the world called 
prosperous. He was a saloon keeper, and lived near 
a widow that had an only son. The widow's son 
was enticed into the saloon night after night. At 
last he went home drunk. The widow called on the 
saloon keeper, and asked him not to sell her boy any 
more liquor. He told her to mind her own business, 



104 CAPTURING THE COLONEL 

and he would mind his, that he had a license to sell 
liquor, and would sell to whom he pleased. The 
boy finally went down to a drunkard's grave. The 
gray haired mother was tottering in sorrow, with a 
broken heart, on the brink of the grave. But in less 
than five years, that saloon keeper's only son put a 
revolver to his own head, during a drunken spree, 
and blew his brains out. Soon after that, the saloon 
keeper went down to his grave, with a broken heart. 
He reaped as he sowed. If you sell booze to another 
man's son, another man will sell booze to your son. 
"For whatsoever a man sows, the same shall he also 
reap." You can close your Bible and still find 
abundant proof of the truth of the text. In the 
days of Louis XI, of France, he had a cruel Bishop 
who persecuted some of the saints of God. The King 
asked him how he could make their punishment more 
cruel. The Bishop said: "Well, make them a cage, 
and have it so short and narrow that they cannot lie 
down, and so low they cannot stand straight, and 
they will have to be in a bent position all the while." 
The cage was made, and the very first one who went 
into it was the Bishop himself. For fourteen years 
the King kept him in that cage. The bishop reaped 
what he sowed. His experience was a living proof 
of the truth of Proverbs, 28:10, "He shall fall 
himself into his own pit." The dreadful effect, in 
this life, of sowing sin, is revealed by the following 
historical facts, in connection with the painting, by 



CAPTURING THE COLONEL 105 

Leonardo Da Vinci, of his master piece, named, ' ' The 
Last Supper." The artist sought a long time for a 
model for the Christ. He wanted a young man of 
pure character and blameless life, so that he could 
get just the look in the face that he wanted to paint 
in his picture. Finally he found a young man of 
beautiful countenance, whose life also was said to be 
as beautiful as his face. The youth was a singer in 
a church choir in Rome, and his name was Pietro 
Bandinelli. This youth sat as the model for the pic- 
ture of the Christ. Years afterwards, the painting 
of "The Last Supper" was still unfinished. The 
eleven apostles had all been put on the canvass, but 
the artist had sought in vain for some one that suited 
his conception of what the model for Judas should 
be. He sought for a man so hardened by sin, and so 
degraded by vice, that his very face would reveal the 
awful ravages of a wicked life. One day, in the city 
of Rome, he found just the model he wanted to rep- 
resent Judas Iscariot. It was a face ^^h so villain- 
ous, and vile, and hardened, that it was repulsive to 
the artist himself. Da Vinci secured him to sit as 
the model for his Judas. "When the picture was com- 
pleted, the artist said: "I have not yet asked your 
name, but I will now." The man answered, "Pietro 
Bandinelli." And looking intently at the artist, he 
then said: "I also sat to you as the model for your 
Christ." Da Vinci was astonished, and would not 
believe the poor wretch's statement, until proof was 



106 CAPTURING THE COLONEL 

produced that established its truth. Pietro Bandi- 
nelli, whose face was once so sweet and pure that it 
inspired Da Vinci to paint that face as the face of 
Christ, had been sowing sin in his life, and was al- 
ready reaping the terrible harvest of a degraded and 
vile character, which so defiled and marred the once 
beautiful face, that it had degenerated to one suited 
to represent the arch traitor, Judas Iscariot. That 
is a good illustration of what sin does. It removes 
from the countenance and blots out every semblance 
of God, and puts in its place the image of the devil. 
"For whatsoever a man sows, the same shall he also 
reap." 

Another truth is that w T hen a man sows, he expects 
to reap more than he sows. You sow a handful of 
grain and reap a bushel. Likewise, you have to reap 
more evil than you sow. Sometimes the reaping 
comes soon after the sowing, and sometimes the 
reaping is delayed. But the reaping time comes 
sooner or later. There are four cases of recent oc- 
currence that establish the truth of what I am say- 
ing. The four cases I mention, are four men who 
were arrested in the same year, 1911. 1st, Thomas 
Edgar Stripling, chief of police at Danville, Vir- 
ginia, under the assumed name of R. E. Morris, was 
discovered and arrested. He was an escaped life 
convict and had been sentenced for the murder of 
Bill Cornett, in Harris county, Georgia, in 1897. At 
Danville, he had risen from the position of night 



CAPTURING THE COLONEL 107 

watchman to chief of police, and was in the full uni- 
form of his office when arrested. He telephoned to 
his wife, the message, " Smith has found me." He 
was allowed to go home to say farewell to his faith- 
ful wife and a half dozen adoring children, who 
were in paroxysms of grief over the sudden tragedy 
to their once happy home. Reaping what he sowed. 
2nd, Senator James A. Murtha, a State Senator of 
Michigan, was exposed as the same James A. Murtha 
of Brooklyn, N. Y., who was disbarred in 1905, on 
the charge of appropriating to his own use two thou- 
sand dollars that belonged to a widow client. It 
appeared that he had led an honorable life in Michi- 
gan, and, like Stripling, had been honored by the 
people in his new home. 

3rd, T. B. Whitson, for sixteen years a respected 
citizen of Whiteburg, Ky., amassed a fortune in busi- 
ness. But he w T as rearrested and sent back to North 
Carolina state prison, to serve out an unexpired sen- 
tence of thirty years, for the murder of C. C. Byrd, 
in 1883. In being returned to the penitentiary of 
North Carolina, Whitson leaves behind him, in Ken- 
tucky, a wife that he married during his honorable 
career, and who knew nothing about his criminal 
record. 

4th, John A. Jacobs, a wealthy grocer of Boston, 
Mass., was arrested and returned to Kansas City, 
Mo., to answer the charge of stealing fourteen hun- 
dred dollars from Charles F. Schnier, by whom Ja- 



108 CAPTURING THE COLONEL 

cobs was employed as a collector thirteen years be- 
fore. Jacobs was forty-one years old at the time of 
his return to Kansas City. He had remained a 
bachelor, so that he is the only one of these four 
cases whose reaping does not bring a harvest of sor- 
row to others besides himself. All these men escaped 
the clutches of the officers of the law for years, but 
they had to reap what they sowed. "For whatso- 
ever a man sows, the same shall he also reap." There 
is one thing that you can count on, without any 
chance of failure, viz : your sin will find you out, 
sometime, somewhere. You may sneer and laugh, 
and you may think that you will cover your tracks 
so completely that they can never be found, and that 
you will hide the sin by burying it so deep that it 
can never have a resurrection. But your sin is sure 
to be found out. "Be not deceived; God is not 
mocked; for whatsoever a man sows, the same shall 
he also reap." Your sin is known. God knows it, 
and it is folly and blindness to believe that your sin 
will never come to light. Think for a moment of 
the sons of the old patriarch Jacob. They put their 
brother Joseph in a pit in the wilderness. Twenty 
years afterward, in the distant land of Egypt, their 
sin found them out, and they reaped what they 
sowed. Joseph put them in prison, and then they 
remembered their sin of the long ago. See Genesis 
42:21. "And they said one to another, 'We are ver- 
ily guilty concerning our brother, in that we saw the 



CAPTURING THE COLONEL 109 

distress of his soul, when he besought us, and we 
would not hear : therefore is this distress come upon 
us.' " 

Twenty long years had rolled away into the past, 
but their sin had overtaken them in a strange land. 
"For whatsoever a man sows, the same shall he also 
reap." 

The person that steals a dime is as truly a thief as 
the one who steals a thousand dollars. Embezzlers, 
forgers, and defaulters begin with small peculations. 
Little by little the habit of dishonesty grows, until 
exposure comes, then the trial in court, followed by 
a sentence to the penitentiary, and the life is ruined 
and the name is disgraced. When one starts on the 
downward road, he just takes a step at a time. 
Every week I meet people who are already reaping 
the harvest of evil sowing. They sowed wild oats 
years ago, and are now reaping the terrible harvest. 
"For whatsoever a man sows, the same shall he also 
reap." I now invite your attention to the last part 
of my text. "But he that sows to the Spirit shall 
of the Spirit reap life eternal. ' ' This gives the. only 
remedy for the evil sowing of the past. All of you 
have found the first part of my text to be true, and 
many of you are already reaping the awful harvest 
of the sin which you sowed in the past. Now make 
a personal test of the last part of the text, and to- 
night sow to the Spirit, and claim personally the 
promise of life eternal. Valentine Burke, at the age 



110 CAPTURING THE COLONEL 

of forty years, was a prisoner in the city of St. Louis. 
He had spent one half of his life in prison. He sowed 
the wild oats of sin in early youth, and the harvest 
time began early in his life. The great evangelist, 
D. L. Moody, was holding meetings in the city, and 
the Globe-Democrat had undertaken to print, each 
day, the sermon that Mr. Moody preached on the 
preceding night. When Mr. Moody learned that the 
Globe-Democrat was to publish his sermons, he de- 
cided to quote his text as often as he conveniently 
could, in order that the thousands who read the ser- 
mons, and did not attend the services, would read 
the text so often that it would make a lasting im- 
pression on them. One evening, a news boy was 
near the St. Louis jail, selling papers ; and was loudly 
announcing the headlines of one of the articles, say- 
ing, "The Jailer at Philippi caught." Valentine 
Burke heard the news boy, and thought the article 
referred to the jail keeper at a town of the name of 
Philippi, in southern Illinois. He knew something 
about that jailer, and was anxious to find out how he 
had been caught, and consequently, Burke got the 
news boy's attention, and purchased a paper. In the 
sermon about the jailer, Mr. Moody used the text, 
Acts, 16:31, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and 
thou shalt be saved." This text was quoted nine 
times in the sermon. Valentine Burke began read- 
ing the article with the head lines about catching the 
jailer at Philippi, and was soon into the midst of the 



CAPTURING THE COLONEL 111 

sermon. He became interested, and read the sermon 
clear through. That included the nine times that the 
text was quoted. He had to light a little candle to 
finish the sermon, as darkness came on while he was 
reading. He put out the light, when he finished, and 
went to bed. But it was impossible to sleep. He 
kept thinking about that text. He arose from the 
cot, lit the small candle, and read the sermon again. 
By that time he had read the text at least eighteen 
times. He retired again, but as before, he could not 
sleep. He tossed and rolled on the cot, and finally 
got up again, and lighted the little candle, and read 
the sermon over, the little candle giving out just 
about the time he finished. That made three times 
that he had read the sermon, and twenty-seven times 
that he had read the text, "Believe on the Lord 
Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved." Still he 
could not sleep ; and after a sleepless night, about the 
time the first streaks of the dawn were making the 
darkness of night fade away, Valentine Burke drop- 
ped on his knees on the floor of his cell, and prayed 
for salvation. Peace came into his heart as soon as 
he made his surrender to God. He was in prison 
awaiting trial for some crime ; but when the time for 
trial arrived, the witnesses against him did not ap- 
pear, and he was released. Like others before and 
since, he had to meet temptation, and go through the 
struggles to test his faith. But God was true, as He 
always is, and Valentine Burke became an honored, 



112 CAPTURING THE COLONEL 

trusted, and respected citizen of his city. He sowed 
to the Spirit, and of the Spirit reaped life eternal. 
"Will you here and now emulate his example of sur- 
rendering to God, and sow to the Spirit, and receive 
eternal life, which is freely offered in Christ? Sow 
to the Spirit now. 



VIII 

ANOTHER ADDRESS ON SOWING 
AND REAPING 

8. W. BRAND OM 

Text : Galatians, 6 :7-8. "Be not deceived ; God is 
not mocked; for whatsoever a man sows, the same 
shall he also reap ; because he that sows to his flesh 
shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that sows 
to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life eternal. " 
(Worrell 's Translation) . 

In the two preceding addresses, I have treated this 
subject in a general way. In the present address, I 
purpose to call attention to some of the special ways 
that men reap what they sow. In the first place, 
men reap what they sow in the conduct and disposi- 
tion of their fellow men. The cruel and brutal man 
receives cruel and brutal treatment from his fellow 
men. According to Genesis 9:6, " Whoso sheddeth 
man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed." I do 
not want to be quoted as giving any sort of an ap- 
proval of mob violence. But I simply state some 
facts. God does not give any expression in His 
word, that can be twisted into an approval of sin and 
its awful consequences. Still God states a truth, as a 
fact, when He says, t l The wages of sin is death. ' ' He 

113 



114 SOWING AND REAPING 

states another truth, as a fact, when he gives the 
language of the texts I have already quoted, "What- 
soever a man sows, the same shall he also reap," and 
"Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his 
blood be shed." Years ago, I was located for a time 
in Kansas. A few weeks after the laying out of the 
town of Ashland, in Clark county, there was a build- 
ing boom; and after some homes had been estab- 
lished, and some business places were opened, the 
cowboys seemed to have a grudge against the town, 
because it was started as a temperance town. They 
would go to Clark Center, about two miles north of 
Ashland, and fill up on bad whisky, and then come 
down to Ashland and shoot up the town. One night, 
two of them rode down the main street, and 
began shooting up the town, and shot down 
two inoffensive men that were standing in 
front of a restaurant. Before many hours 
passed, the citizens of the town had one of the 
murderers in their power, and they dragged him 
down street, at the end of a rope, and strung him up 
in the lumber yard in short western style. That 
man's name was Joe Mitchell. He reaped what he 
sowed, and the reaping time came in a few brief 
hours after the sowing. Only a few years after that, 
his brother was helping a man named Johnson to 
control a herd of horses. Johnson lived in Colorado, 
and was in my law office in a Colorado town, on 
some law matters, only a few days previous to start- 



SOWING AND REAPING 115 

ing west to buy a herd of horses. He took his son, a 
lad of somewhere from ten to fifteen years old, and 
Mitchell,, with him. He purchased a large herd of 
horses, as I afterward heard, and took them to Den- 
ver, and from Denver he journeyed east, following 
the Arkansas river, stopping at the towns to sell 
what horses he could, and finally reached Syracuse, 
Kansas. At Syracuse, he so reduced the herd, by 
numerous sales, that he decided to let his hired help 
go, and therefore paid Mitchell what he owed him, 
and let him go. The night following the discharge 
of Mitchell, Johnson and son drove the horses out 
into the country, a few miles from Syracuse, and 
went into camp. The horses were left to graze on 
the prairie, while Johnson and son put their bedding 
under the wagon, and retired for the night. Next 
day, away along toward noon, some of the settlers 
noticed that the horses had scattered over the 
prairie, and no one was seen about the camper's 
wagon, and so several of the settlers went to the 
wagon to see what was the matter. There they found 
the son of Johnson dead from a fractured and crush- 
ed skull, and saw where his brains had spattered the 
spokes of one wagon wheel, and Mr. Johnson himself 
was unconscious from a cracked skull, but was 
breathing. Of course, all was done that could be 
done for the unfortunate man. About a week after- 
ward, Mr. Johnson became conscious, and told of 
some one disturbing him, and of his own 



116 SOWING AND REAPING 

efforts to rise, whereupon a voice command- 
ed him to lie down, and then something 
hit him on the head, that being the last he 
remembered of the events of that fatal night. He 
thought the voice he heard was Mitchell's. From 
this account, the clew was obtained, and the mur- 
derer was captured. I drove into Cooledge, Kansas, 
the very day that Mitchell was taken back to Syra- 
cuse. He had stolen a horse over near the state line 
in Colorado on the night of the murder, and when 
Mr. Johnson gave the clew to the doctors and officers 
in Syracuse, Mitchell was in jail at Trinidad, on a 
charge of horse stealing. Without waiting to try 
the prisoner for horse stealing, the governor of Colo- 
rado honored the requisition from Kansas, and the 
prisoner was delivered to the Kansas authorities. 
When I drove into Cooledge, I put my team in a 
barn, and soon stepped into a store. It was nearly 
sun down when I stepped into the store. After some 
conversation, and after attending to my business 
there, the merchant asked me to go with him to 
Syracuse. He said the officers had taken Mitchell 
to Syracuse, on the afternoon train, from the west, 
and the merchant volunteered this statement : " And 
they'll hang him tonight, as certain as they've got 
him, and I'm going down to see it." I declined his 
very kind invitation, and therefore missed the neck- 
tie party. But the party was pulled off according to 
the prearranged plans, and the next day when I drove 



SOWING AND REAPING 117 

into Syracuse, it was no trouble to learn the details 
of the necktie party. The Mitchell corpse was an 
object of curiosity to the many who went to view the 
remains. That victim of mob violence, like his 
brother at Ashland, reaped what he sowed. "Whoso 
sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be 
shed." And "Be not deceived; God is not mocked; 
for whatsoever a man sows, the same shall be also 
reap. " You probably can think of many other 
equally well known instances, where some man has 
sowed to the wind, and reaped the whirlwind of the 
wrath of his fellow men. 

In the second place, men reap what they sow, in 
the execution of human laws. The very next sum- 
mer after the hanging of Joe Mitchell by the mob, 
at Ashland, Kansas, Dr. Layfield, a dentist of Ash- 
land, was shot one night, at his claim, some seven 
miles from town. In a few hours after the discov- 
ery of the crime, Tobe Taylor was subpoenaed as a 
witness for the inquest, and was never released, but 
was held for the murder, and in due time was con- 
victed, and sentenced, according to law. He reaped 
what he sowed, and the reaping time came on soon 
after the murder. Sometimes the reaping is delay- 
ed; but the reaping is sure to come. Only a little 
over two years ago, I read, in a daily paper, the ac- 
count of the arrest of a man for a murder that he 
committed away back in 1865. The statement I read 
is as follows, date June 30, 1911 : 



118 SOWING AND REAPING 

"Farmer, 79, jailed for killing 50 years ago. — Bon- 
ham, Tex., June 30. — David W. Byers, a respected 
farmer of Greenville, Tex., today is under arrest by 
sheriff V. B. Leeman. Byers is charged with the 
murder of L. L. Harris at this place nearly 50 years 
ago. He is 79 years old. It is said there is only one 
living witness, and that he now resides in Fort 
Smith, Ark. The killing occurred Dec. 10, 1865. 
Since then, the accused has been at large, his loca- 
tion having been discovered only recently by Sheriff 
Leeman. The only living witness is Geo. W. Doncho, 
it is said. Byers for many years was a resident of 
south Texas, prior to his removal to the farm 3 miles 
north of Greenville." Forty-five and one-half years 
passed into history between the killing and the ar- 
rest, but the reaping time, although long delayed, 
came with unfailing certainty. Webster stated this 
truth, in different words, in the great Knapp murder 
trial, when he said, "Murder will out." But crimes 
against the commonwealth are not the only sins, not 
by any means. And stealing visible goods and chat- 
tels is not the only kind of theft in the world. A 
much worse sort of stealing is stealing character and 
reputation. Stealing a good name is worse than 
stealing visible chattel property. I'd much rather 
you'd steal my purse than my good name and repu- 
tation. Shakespeare expressed what I mean, when 
he wrote the lines, "Who steals my purse steals 
trash. 'Twas mine; 'Tis his, and has been slave to 



SOWING AND REAPING 119 

thousands. But he that filches from me my good 
name, robs me of that which not enriches him, and 
makes me poor indeed." Still, the one that sows 
the seeds of slander and libel, must reap what he 
sows. His sin will bring sorrow to himself, soma 
time, somewhere. Years ago, an old minister of the 
gospel, who lived near my father's home, was slan- 
dered; and the lies traveled many miles before the 
truth of the matter had started on the trip of cor- 
rection and refutation. That is always the case. 
The lie of the slanderer does its dirty work, before 
the truth has a chance to be heard. The slander of 
the old preacher was much spoken of at the meeting 
of the old West Fork Association, for he 
preached the introductory sermon that same year. 
His discourse was an able one, and, at the dinner 
hour, an old sister remarked, that she would have 
enjoyed the sermon much better, if she had not heard 
that report on the doctor. He was a D. D. The 
"report" well nigh destroyed the doctor's useful- 
ness as a minister of the gospel, before he or his 
friends learned anything about it. My father was 
at that time a Baptist deacon with some more than 
average influence and reputation, and he and Bro. 
C. M. Williams went to the trouble to ferret out the 
facts or falsehood of the "report." With the infor- 
mation they obtained, they were enabled to establish 
the falsity of the "report," and they were also en- 
abled to locate the man responsible for the slander. 



120 SOWING AND REAPING 

They even went to the slanderer, and faced him with 
his falsehood, and when confronted with the proof of 
his perfidy, the slanderer began to plead and beg for 
mercy, for an action in the civil courts for damages 
was hinted at. That slanderer had to reap what he 
sowed. A wealthy man, in southern Missouri, slan- 
dered a neighbor who was also wealthy. The slan- 
derous statement was of such a nature, that, if true, 
the man accused was liable to an indictment for a 
felony. The grand jury was finally engaged in an 
investigation of the charges, and acted wiser than 
the average grand jury, for it subpoenaed witnesses 
to hear both sides. The accused man himself was 
subpoenaed, and thus he obtained notice of the inves- 
tigation. He went to work; first, to convince the 
grand jury of his innocence, which he did to the en- 
tire satisfaction of that body of his fellow citizens. 
Then, second, he proceeded to ascertain the source 
of the charges. He finally found an old Baptist 
merchant who had heard the slanderer make the 
slanderous statements; and with that witness, the 
slandered man confronted his enemy, and demanded 
that he choose one or the other of the two horns of 
a dialemma. The accused man said, "You can get 
in the buggy, and go to town with us, and make an 
affidavit that you told this lie on me, and that you 
knew it was a lie when you told it, or I will sue you 
for damages before the sun goes down." And he 
then added this statement: "You could have my 



SOWING AND REAPING 121 

money, but you can't have my character. I'm going 
to save that for my children." The man, thus con- 
fronted with his sin of slander, went to town, and« 
made the affidavit required, and thus escaped a suit 
for damages; but he was shown up in a very unde- 
sirable light before his neighbors. He reaped what 
he sowed. "Be not deceived; God is not mocked; 
for whatsoever a man sows, the same shall be also 
reap." 

Another recent example of reaping the fruits of 
sin in the execution of human laws, is the now fam- 
ous case of Rev. Richeson, who was pastor of a 
Boston church. His sin and crime of inducing his 
former sweetheart, of whom he had grown tired, to 
take a capsule containing cyanide, was established 
to the apparent satisfaction of court and jury, al- 
though the victim of his betrayal and crime, Miss 
Avis Linnel, died under circumstances which indi- 
cated that the criminal intended that her death 
should be held to be suicide. But the criminal 
preacher was executed for his crime, and has left 
another example which affords additional proof of 
the truth of my text, that "Whatsoever a man sows, 
the same shall he also reap." The now famous case 
in New York of Hans Schmidt, Catholic priest and 
murderer, who brutally slaughtered Anna Aumueler, 
is another proof of my text. 

The recent cases of John J. and James B. Mc- 
Namara, confessed murderers and dynamiters, afford 



122 SOWING AND REAPING 

further proof of the text. I might multiply these 
examples indefinitely, but the cases I have mention- 
ed are enough to show the frequency of people reap- 
ing what they sow, in the ordinary eexcution of 
human laws. 

In the third place, people reap what they sow, in 
their own bodies. I knew a young man in my own 
county some years ago, who was guilty of social sins. 
He was soon diseased, as a direct result of his social 
errors. He lost his eye sight, as one result of his so- 
cial sins. He was sent to a school for the blind, 
and the last time I saw him, he was being led 
along the street of the town where he was once a 
happy, rollicking, playful, healthy boy. He had to 
reap the terrible harvest of the sin which he sowed 
in his young life. And what a terrible reaping! 

Some years ago, I was principal of the Pattons- 
burg schools. The two railroads run right through 
the town. One evening, about sundown, in the 
month of September, a boy undertook to ride a 
moving freight train. His home was only a short 
distance from the Wabash tracks. His father had 
frequently forbidden his jumping trains, and had 
repeatedly warned him of the great danger of such 
a course. But, like many another boy, he thought 
he knew better than his father. In trying to jump 
on the car, his feet went under the wheels, and one 
limb was crushed into a pulp, from just below the 
knee to the foot, and part of the other foot was cut 



SOWING AND REAPING 123 

off. I was at the Lindel hotel. Dr. Barlow, 
who was a student in the first school that I ever 
taught, came to the hotel and asked me to go with 
him and act as his assistant in amputating the un- 
fortunate boy's limb. He wanted me to administer 
the anaesthetic, and help in other ways if neces- 
sary. I am not anxious for another invitation of 
that nature. The boy lived for several weeks, but 
his home surroundings were very poor, and after 
weeks of suffering, and while agonizing and plead- 
ing for life, he died. He reaped a terrible harvest 
for sowing the sin of disobedience to parents. 

Men and women, and boys and girls, sin against 
the laws of their own physical being, and reap the 
horrible harvest of disease, physical weakness, bod- 
ily suffering, shortened life, with impaired energy 
and impoverished strength, and premature death. 
Oh! "Be not deceived; God is not mocked. For 
whatsoever a man sows, the same shall he also reap." 

In the fourth place, men reap what they sow, in 
character. If a man sows sin, he will reap a har- 
vest in undesirable character. For example, the 
man who swears has a character that is honeycomb- 
ed with rottenness. The swearing man, being de- 
ficient in reverence for God, has no solid founda- 
tion for a good character, and is like the wooden 
houses in India that are eaten full of holes by the 
white ants of that country; and although the holes 
are not visible to the casual observer, when a storm 



124 SOWING AND REAPING 

of much violence comes, the structure falls, on ac- 
count of the weakness of the ant eaten timbers. 
The character of the swearing man is so weakened, 
with the eating of the little ants of irreverence, 
that, when any strain comes against his character, 
he falls. Furthermore, no man can long maintain 
a good name, even among his fellow men, without 
a solid character to sustain that name. Shakes- 
peare says, "The purest treasure mortal times af- 
ford, is spotless reputation. That away, men are 
but gilded loam or painted clay. A jewel in a ten 
times barred up chest, is a bold spirit in a loyal 
breast. ' ' 

In a commercial sense, character is the best asset, 
and the surest backing that a man can have. It is 
the collateral that secured the loan in time of finan- 
cial danger and distress. It is the foundation of 
the credit extended by the wholesale house, and the 
basis of the permitted overdraft at the bank. Young 
man, if you want a safe fonudation for a successful 
business career, invest in a good personal charac- 
ter as your one best and safest financial asset. You 
cannot sin without starting an ulcer on your private 
character. If you wrong a man in regard to his 
family, you make a moral ulcer on your own char- 
acter. 

In the fifth place, you reap the harvest of sin in 
your conscience. Shakespeare says, "Conscience 
makes cowards of us all." The Latin poet Juvenal 



SOWING AND REAPING 125 

said, "Trust me no torture that the poets feign, Can 
match the fierce unutterable pain, He feels, Who, 
night and day, devoid of rest, Carries his own ac- 
cuser in his breast." 

Lord Byron said : ' ' Thus the dark in soul expire, 
Or live like scorpion, Girt with fire. Thus writhes 
the soul remorse hath riven, Unfit for earth, Un- 
doomed for Heaven. Darkness above, despair be- 
neath, Around him gloom, within him death." 

An article in a daily paper, in 1911, contained the 
following, as an item of news : ' - Confesses to Old 
Murder. — Man Haunted by Memory of Crime 12 
Years Ago, Surrenders. — New York, Feb. 6. — Haunt- 
ed by the memory of a crime committed twelve years 
ago, a man who said he was King McNamara, for- 
merly of Lexington, Ky., surrendered to the police 
of the "West Thirtieth street station last night. He 
said he had killed a man in Lexington and that a 
reward of $10,000 had been offered for his arrest. 
Lexington dispatches confirm his statement." May- 
be you say your conscience does not bother you on 
account of your past sins. Many a man fails to 
heed his conscience, until it becomes seared as with 
a hot iron; but it will wake up some day, and woe 
to the man whose conscience wakes up in all of its 
renewed and aroused pangs of remorse ! Years ago, 
a girl, who had drifted into a city from the farm, 
went the downward road, as many another girl has 
done, and one night the Fiske Jubilee Singers gave 



126 SOWING AND REAPING 

<a concert in the city, and a friend gave her a ticket 
to the concert. She found a seat up in the gallery. 
Finally, those black musicians, with their rich and 
deep musical voices, sang a song, with the strange 
and wierd refrain, 

"My mother once, my mother twice, my mother 
shell rejoice. 

In Heaven once, in Heaven twice, my mother 
shell rejoice. " 
As the strains of that refrain floated up on the air 
into the gallery, that fallen girl was deeply stirred. 
In memory she saw a cottage home in the country, 
the shades of night had gathered, and there was a 
little table in the sitting room; on the table sat a 
lighted kerosene lamp, and by the table, seated in 
a rocking chair, was a middle aged woman with an 
open Bible on her lap, and kneeling by her side, was 
a golden haired little four year old girl, learning to 
say her first prayer. She remembered that the little 
golden haired girl was herself. Just then the sing- 
ers again came to the refrain, 

"My mother once, my mother twice, my mother 
shell rejoice. 

In Heaven once, in Heaven twice, my mother 
shell rejoice. " 

That girl arose from her seat in the gallery, went 
down the gallery stairs, and out of the opera house 
into the cold of the severe winter night. She hur- 
ried along the gas lighted street, on and on, till she 



SOWING AND REAPING 127 

passed the last gas light of the city street, and still 
she hastened on along the country highway that led 
toward the cottage home of her childhood. The 
next morning, when a certain farmer opened his 
front door, there lay that poor girl, clutching the 
threshold, dead! She was driven to death by an 
aroused and awakened, but accusing conscience. 
She reaped the harvest of sin in an accusing con- 
science. 

Years ago, in a certain neighborhood, a man left 
home and never returned. He was last seen with 
another man, and although some folks suspicioned 
the other man, they had no proof of crime, and so 
the disappearance of the absent man remained an 
unexplained mystery. Years went by, many farms 
in the neighborhood changed hands, and the citizen- 
ship had very largely changed too. One day, a 
man, who lived in the community, was away from 
home some distance, and heard someone screaming 
with a loud voice. Going in the direction from 
which the sound came, he soon found a man looking 
down into an old abandoned shaft, gesturing, and 
screaming, "There he goes! There he goes! There 
he goes!!" The screaming man was the very one 
who was last seen with the missing man years be- 
fore. He had pushed his neighbor into that old 
abandoned shaft, and although no one else in all the 
world knew it, he knew it himself, and remorse of 
conscience had finally driven him to insanity. They 



128 SOWING AND REAPING 

investigated, and found the skeleton of a man at the 
bottom of the shaft. The murderer reaped what he 
sowed, and he reaped it in his own conscience. 
These incidents prove that there is a moral governor 
in this universe, and that one of the laws in the uni- 
verse is, that "Whatsoever a man sows, the same 
shall he also reap/' 

In the sixth place, men reap the fruit of sin in 
their children. "The sins of parents are visited on 
their children to the third and fourth generation.'' 
In the language of the illustrious Shakespeare, "Tis 
true tis pity, and pity tis tis true." But children 
inherit both physical and mental weaknesses, and 
also diseases from their parents, and moral delin- 
quencies too. I know a man who used to be on the 
liquor side of the temperance question, and favored 
the licensing of the saloons. He had a naturally 
brilliant boy who became a drunkard. He reaped 
what he sowed, and reaped it in his own boy. Years 
ago, in Trenton, Mo., a saloon keeper had a son that 
became a common sot and street loafer, so that the 
saloon keeper felt that the boy was a disgrace to 
him and his family, and he actually drove that boy 
out of town, telling him never to come back. He 
was reaping, in his boy, the harvest of his long life 
of sowing sin in that iniquitous liquor traffic. Many 
men that have become diseased as a result of cer- 
tain specific sins, reap the horrible harvest in their 
afflicted children. A vast number of the cases of 



SOWING AND REAPING 129 

incurable blindness are the direct result of disease 
of the fathers, resulting from specific vices. There 
is, of course, a great amount of physical suffering 
in the world not caused by specific sins. But those 
cases may be estimated in coefficients, while those 
caused by specific sins should be estimated by ex- 
ponents. One is by addition, the other by multipli- 
cation. If there is anything in this world that 
should make a man hesitate to commit sin, it cer- 
tainly is the awful truth that his sins will be visited 
on his innocent children and grandchildren. It is 
a terrible thing for children to be hampered, and 
afflicted all through life, because of sins for which 
they are in no way responsible. But it is a law of 
nature, and of phyiscal being, that every thing pro- 
duces its kind, and the same law of heredity holds 
with human kind as with every thing else, both 
with plant life and animal life. 

In the seventh place, men reap the greatest pen- 
alty and punishment for sin in eternity. The six- 
teenth chapter of Luke gives the case of the rich 
man in hell. The account is that, "In hell he lifted 
up his eyes, being in torment/' Oh, the awful, in- 
describable pain, and unceasing anguish of the tor- 
tures of a never ending hell ! If you should be so 
fortunate as to escape reaping the harvest of sin 
sown in this present life, you cannot escape the 
reaping in eternity. Now I invite your attention to 
the fact that I have presented the truth of the law 



130 SOWING AND REAPING 

tonight. The penalty has been stated, and sentence 
has been passed on every man, and like the ancient 
cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, the sentence of de- 
struction is already pronounced, yet there is the ex- 
ample of ancient Nineveh that was also condemned 
to destruction; but Nineveh repented, and God par- 
doned the sins of Nineveh, and the penalty was 
therefore removed, as a special act of the favor of 
a merciful God. And, in the same way, any one 
and every one of you may receive pardon, and have 
the penalty of your sins removed tonight, as a spe- 
cial act of the favor of a merciful God. The last 
part of my text gives the remedy, and the means of 
grace, in these words: "but he that sows to the 
Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life eternal." Sow to 
the Spirit now, by accepting Jesus as your personal 
Savior and Lord and Master, and reap life eternal. 
Come while the musicians sing. 



IX 

HOME 

8. W. BRAND OM 

My text is found in the fifth verse of the twelfth 
chapter of Ecclesiastes. "HOME." The clause, in 
which the text is found, is this: "Man goeth to his 
everlasting home." I do not propose to speak, this 
morning, of the everlasting abode of the impenitent 
and unbelieving of our race who die and go to their 
everlasting home in endless despair, but I want to 
talk about the everlasting home of the redeemed. 
The heavenly home. Only a few nights ago, I 
awoke, some time after midnight, and found that 
I was thinking of Heaven. There came into my 
mind an outline of the theme that was uppermost 
in my thoughts. It so impressed me, that, fearing 
I would forget it, I arose, got a pencil and a scrap 
of paper, and wrote the outline. This morning I 
propose to use that outline, while I speak on the 
subject of Heaven. I shall also call your attention 
to some texts of scripture which affirm the truth of 
the statements of the outline. The outline is as fol- 
lows, viz: 1, Heaven is a place. 2, Heaven is a 
beautiful place. 3, Heaven is a happy place. 4, 
Heaven is a place of good company. 5, We shall 

131 



132 HOME 

know each other there. 6, Heaven is an everlasting 
home. 7, What are the terms of admittance? 

In the first place, that everlasting home which we 
call Heaven is a place. Jesus said to the early dis- 
ciples, according to John 14:2, "I go to prepare a 
place for yon." In the very next verse, He said, 
"And, if I go and prepare a place for you, I am 
coming again, and will receive you to Myself; that, 
where I am, ye may be also." By other texts of 
scripture which I shall quote under another division 
of the subject, I find that the place where Jesus 
said He was going, and to which He did go, is Hea- 
ven. Therefore, Heaven is a place. 

Second, Heaven is a beautiful place. In proof of 
this fact, I cite the following statements of scrip- 
ture : 

Eev. 4:2-4, "Behold, there was a throne set in 
Heaven, and One sitting upon the throne; and He 
"Who was sitting, was, in appearance like a jasper 
stone and a sardius; there was a rainbow round 
about the throne, in appearance, like an emerald; 
and around the throne were twenty-four thrones, 
and on the thrones twenty-four elders sitting, ar- 
rayed in white garments, and on their heads crowns 
of gold." 

Rev. 2:10-12, "And he carried me away in the 
Spirit to a great and high mountain, and showed 
me the city, the holy Jerusalem, coming down out 
of heaven from God, having the glory of God; her 



HOME 133 

radiance was like a stone most precious, as a jasper 
stone clear as crystal; having a wall great and 
high; having twelve gates, and at the gates twelve 
angels. ' ' 

Rev. 21:18-19, "And the material of its wall was 
jasper; and the city was pure gold, like pure glass. 
The foundations of the wall of the city were adorn- 
ed with every manner of precious stone." 

Rev. 21:21, "And the twelve gates were twelve 
pearls; each one of the gates, severally, was of one 
pearl; and the street of the city was pure gold as 
transparent glass." 

Rev. 22:1-2, "And he showed me a river of water 
of life, bright as crystal, issuing forth out of the 
throne of God and of the Lamb, in the midst of its 
street. And on either side of the river, was a tree 
of life, producing twelve fruits, yielding its fruit 
every month; and the leaves of the tree were for 
the healing of the nations." 

These are a few of the references that convince 
us of the indescribable beauty of the everlasting 
home of the redeemed. The truth is that the more 
we investigate and study about the heavenly home, 
the more we see and learn that encourages us to 
want to go there, and the more the beauty of Hea- 
ven shines into our hearts. 

There is a cluster of stars called the Pleiades, or 
seven stars. I can only see six of those stars with 
my natural eye. Some folks can see seven, while 



134 HOME 

still others are able to count eight stars in that 
cluster. With the aid of a telescope many more 
stars can be seen. Years ago, astronomers 
claimed to have counted four hundred stars 
in the cluster of the Pleiades. Some years 
ago, the Henry Brothers, of Paris, claimed that they 
had made a larger lens for their telescope, and that 
they had counted twelve hundred stars in that clus- 
ter. Still another astronomer has claimed that he 
made a still larger lens, and that, by using that 
larger lens in his telescope, he counted two thou- 
sand stars in the cluster of the Pleiades, and that 
there was a luminous background indicating that 
there were many more stars farther on. And, as 
with the cluster of the Pleiades, so with Heaven. 
The larger and better the vision, the more we are 
able to see and learn of its beauty. 

In the third place, all the people who are so for- 
tunate as to go there will be happy, for Heaven is 
a happy place. The following texts prove this : 

Rev. 22:3, " There shall be no more curse." 

Eev. 21:3-4, "Behold, the tabernacle of God is 
with men, and He will dwell with them, and they 
will be His people, and God Himself will be with 
them, as their God. And He will wipe away every 
tear from their eyes. And death shall be no more; 
neither moruning, nor crying, nor pain, shall be 
any more; because the first things passed away." 

Rev. 22:14, "Happy are those w r ho wash their 



HOME 135 

robes, that they may have the right to the tree of 
life, and may enter by the gates into the city. " 

Friends, we may be certain that not half has ever 
been told of the joy and happiness of those who are 
allowed to enter the heavenly home. 

In the fourth place, I am sure that Heaven is a 
place of good company. 

1st, God is there. Rev. 21:3, "God Himself will 
be with them. 

2nd, Our Savior is there. I. Peter, 3:21-22, 
"Jesus Christ, Who is on the right hand of God, 
having gone into Heaven, angels and authorities 
having been made subject to Him." Col. 3:1, 
"Christ is, seated on the right hand of God. " Heb. 
9:24, "For Christ entered not into holy places made 
with hand, patterns of the true ; but into Heaven 
itself, now to appear in the presence of God in our 
behalf." 

3rd, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are in Heaven. 
Matt. 8:11, "I say to you that many will come from 
the east and the west, and will sit down with Ab- 
raham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the Kingdom of 
Heaven." 

4th, A great multitude of people will be there. 
Rev. 19:6-7, "And I heard as it were the voice of a 
great multitude, and as the voice of many waters, 
and as the voice of mighty thunders, saying, * Halle- 
lujah! because the Lord our God, the Almighty, be- 
came King! Let us rejoice, and exult, and give 



136 HOME 

glory to Him; because the marriage of the Lamb 
came, and His wife made herself ready.' " 

5th, Many angels will also be there. Rev. 5 :11-12, 
"And I saw, and heard the voice of many angels 
round about the throne, and of the/ living crea- 
tures, and of the elders, (and the number of them 
was ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands 
of thousands), saying, with a great voice, ' Worthy 
is the Lamb Who hath been slain, to receive the 
power, and riches, and wisdom, and might, and 
honor, and glory, and blessing!' " 

6th, Many will make music with harps, ever there. 
Rev. 14:2-3, "And I heard a voice out of Heaven, 
as a voice of many waters, and as a voice of great 
thunder ; and the voice which I heard was as that of 
harpers, harping with their harps. And they sing 
as it were a new song before the throne, and before 
the four living creatures and the elders." 

7th, An innumerable multitude will be there, with 
white robes, and bearing palms in their hands. Rev. 
7:9, 14-17, "I saw, and, behold, a great multitude, 
which no one could number, out of every nation, 
and of all tribes and peoples and tongues, standing 
before the throne, and before the Lamb, arrayed in 
white robes, and palms in their hands." "These 
are those who came out of the great tribulation; 
and they washed their robes, and made them white 
in the blood of the Lamb. For this reason are they 
before the throne of God, and they serve Him day 



HOME 137 

and night in His Temple; and He Who sitteth on 
the throne will spread His tabernacle over them. 
They shall hunger no more, nor thirst any more." 
" Because the Lamb, Who is in the midst of the 
throne, will be their Shepherd, and will guide them 
to the fountains of the waters of life; and God will 
wipe away every tear from their eyes." 

Dear friends, it is very comforting to me to think 
of the glorious and splendid company that we will 
have when we get to Heaven. 

In the fifth place, I invite your attention to the 
fact that we shall know each other there. One 
proof is I Cor. 13 :12, "Now we see through a mirror, 
obscurely, but then, face to face; now I know in 
part, but then I shall fully know." 

A preacher's wife asked him if he thought they 
would know each other in Heaven. He answered, 
saying, "We know each other here, and we will 
certainly not have any less sense when we get to 
Heaven." It is unreasonable to think of people 
dwelling forever in the same home, and never know- 
ing each other. Strangers do not dwell together 
in the same happy home. Yes, we shall know each 
other there. For a verse of scripture already quot- 
ed says, "Then I shall fully know." Besides, we 
all know that the people dwelling continually and 
intimately in the same home do not long remain 
strangers. Furthermore, we have the incident, men- 
tioned in the Bible, of Peter, James and John, who 



138 HOME 

saw Jesus transfigured before them, and they saw 
two other persons with Jesus, and they at once 
knew that the other two were Moses and Elijah, 
although neither Peter nor James nor John had 
ever seen either Moses or Elijah before that hour. 
That incident is sufficient to convince us that we 
shall be able, in Heaven, to recognize, at sight, even 
people that we never knew on earth; and, for a 
still stronger reason, we shall know those whom we 
have seen and loved here on earth. There is no 
place like the heavenly home, and we shall know 
each other there. 

More than sixty years ago, an American citizen 
who was representing the IT. S. at the capitol of the 
Barbary States died at Tunis, Africa, and was 
buried. After his body had rested for over thirty 
years in the sands of Africa, another citizen of our 
country asked and obtained the consent of the Con- 
gress of the U. S. to disinter the body of that Am- 
erican patriot and bring it to America, and bury it 
in one of our national cemeteries. When the Am- 
erican soldiers and the other members of the expedi- 
tion reached the grave, near Tunis, they found that 
every civilized and semi-civilized nation of the 
world had sent representatives there, to be present 
at the disinterment. Around that lonely grave near 
Tunis, Africa, were gathered the chosen represen- 
tatives of the various nations of the world. The 
Englishman and the Frenchman, the Russian and the 



HOME 139 

German, the Austrian and the Italian, the Turk and 
the Persian, the Arab and the Spaniard, stood 
around the lonely grave. The Christian and the 
Mohammedan, the Hindoo and the Confucian, the 
Catholic and the Jew, mingled their tears of sym- 
pathy as the American soldiers disinterred the body, 
and wrapped it in the Stars and Stripes, then placed 
it in a triple casket, and carried it to the sea. After 
the triple casket was placed on board, the Ameri- 
can vessel left the Barbary coast, plowed through 
the waters of the Mediterranean sea, crossed the 
Atlantic ocean, and anchored in the harbor at New 
York. The Mayor and chief men of the city as- 
sembled at the wharf, and served as an escort, while 
the triple casket was carried to the city hall. There 
the body lay in state for three days and nights, 
while the people of every rank and station surged 
through the building, just to get a glimpse of the 
triple casket that contained the remains of the de- 
ceased. A special train conveyed the remains to 
Washington, D. C. There, the Supreme Court of 
the nation, and both houses of Congress adjourned, 
in honor of the memory of the distinguished pa- 
triot. The President and Vice President, senators, 
supreme court judges, the members of the House of 
Representatives, the President's cabinet, and the 
heads of all the several departments of the govern- 
ment, attended the ceremonies connected with the 
burial of the body of the distinguished American, 



140 HOME 

in the national cemetery. The greatest men of our 
country esteemed it an honor to be assigned a place 
at the funeral. Why was the memory of that one 
man so precious, not only to his own fellow citi- 
zens, but also to the people of all other lands? The 
answer is this. He had written one song, the song 
of the home. That song, "HOME SWEET HOME," 
had been translated into all languages, and where- 
ever the abode of civilized man could be found, 
that song had been sung, and it had never failed to 
touch a responsive chord in every human breast. 
All the world loves the home and the song which 
expresses the universal regard for home. "Mid 
pleasures and palaces, Tho' we may roam, Be it ever 
so humble, There's no place like Home. A charm 
from the skies, Seems to hallow us there, Which 
seek through the world, Is ne'er met with elsewhere. 

Home, home, sweet, sweet home, 

There 's no place like home, 

There's no place like home." 
Just because he composed that song of the home, 
the name and fame of John Howard Payne was held 
in sacred and tender memory by the people of all 
lands. And while it is true that the best and ten- 
derest memories of earth cluster around the home, 
there is far greater reason to cherish the thought of 
the heavenly home, which is the ' c everlasting home. ' 9 
In the sixth place, I ask you to consider this fact 
that Heaven is an "everlasting home," This one 



HOME 141 

fact should place Heaven far above the homes that 
we see and know here. Even the best and happiest 
homes in this world do not last. Their existence 
and duration are only temporary. Many things 
occur to break up our happy homes. Our loved 
ones go away. Often sin enters, and destroys the 
home. In the course of a few years, at farthest, 
death comes, and takes away our loved ones, and 
thus breaks up the home. While our loved ones re- 
main with us in the home, very often they suffer on 
account of sickness, and burdens of sorrow, and pain 
resulting from bodily affliction. Often they mourn, 
and cry, and weep, because of cares and troubles 
that appear to be too great to bear. But it will not 
be so in Heaven. According to Eev. 21:4, "He will 
wipe away every tear from their eyes. And death 
shall be no more ; neither mourning, nor crying, nor 
pain, shall be any more." * 

Don't you want to go there, and don't you want 
your loved ones and your friends to go there, where 
there'll be no more death, neither mourning, nor 
crying, nor pain? Then will be fulfilled the promise 
of God, that "The wicked shall cease from trou- 
bling, and the weary shall be at rest." "Man goeth 
to his everlasting home, and the mourners go about 
the streets." But the mourners go about the streets 
here on earth, not in Heaven. 

In the seventh place, What are the terms of ad- 
mittance to the heavenly home? When Jesus was 



142 HOME 

talking to his disciples about going away, in John 
14:5-6, " Thomas says to Him, 'Lord, we know not 
whither Thou art going ; how do we know the way ? ' 
Jesus saith to him, 'I am the way.' " By texts of 
scripture, which I have already quoted, we find that 
the place to which Jesus was talking of going, and 
to which He did go, is Heaven itself. He says that 
He is the way. Therefore, only those who know 
Jesus know the way to Heaven. You may know 
what some others have said about Heaven, or what 
Jesus Himself has said about Heaven, but you do 
not know the way to Heaven, until you have an ex- 
perimental knowledge of the way, by yielding your- 
self to Christ, and accepting Him as your personal 
Savior and Lord. Not only is Jesus the way to 
Heaven, but He is the only way. He says, in John 
14:6, "No one comes to the Father, except through 
Me." Hence, being in Christ is the condition of ad- 
mittance to Heaven. The terms are, YIELDING 
TO CHRIST. The inspired word teaches us, in II 
Cor. 5 :17, that, "If any one is in Christ, he is a new 
creature." Jesus tells us, in John, 10:1, 7, 9, "Ver- 
ily, verily, I say to you, he that enters not through 
the door into the fold of the sheep, but climbeth up 
some other way, he is a thief and a robber." "Jesus,* 
therefore, said to them again, l verily, verily, I say 
to you, I am the door of the sheep.' "I am the 
door; through Me if any one enter, he shall be 



HOME 143 

saved, and shall go in and go out, and find pas- 
ture/' 

By yielding yourself to Christ, you will find it 
easy to be saved, no matter how great a sinner you 
are now, or may have been in the past. See Isaiah, 
1:18, "Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be 
as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, 
they shall be as wool." 

This promise of God should encourage every one 
to accept Christ, and to make an effort to get in 
the way that leads to Heaven. It is also true that 
thousands are entering Heaven every hour. At ev- 
ery swing of the pendulum, somebody enters the 
everlasting home. In order that all who will may 
enter without delay, God has made abundant pro- 
visions to enter Heaven. See Rev. 21:13, "On the 
east were three gates, and on the north three gates, 
and on the south three gates, and on the west three 
gates. " Rev. 21:25, "And its gates shall in nowise 
be shut by day (for there will be no night there)." 

I am glad that such abundant provision has been 
made to enter Heaven, twelve gates, and that the 
gates are always open. But reflect that if you miss 
Heaven, you will have no one to blame but yourself ; 
for the provision is ample, and the invitation is 
general. See Rev. 2'2 :17, "And the Spirit and the 
bride say, 'come;' and let him that hears say, 'come/ 
he that will let him take the water of life freely." 
Rev. 22:1, "And he showed me a river of water of 



144 HOME 

life, bright as crystal, issuing forth out of the throne 
of God and of the Lamb, in the midst of its street." 
God invites you to enter Heaven, and take the water 
of the river of life freely. 

Oh! friends, if you miss Heaven, your life is a 
failure. Think of a man accumulating wealth 
amounting to millions, and in one day losing it alL 
You would say that he failed at last. Just so, the 
man that accumulates even millions of the riches of 
this world, if he misses Heaven, his life is a failure. 
He failed at last, and his whole life is a total and 
complete failure. He has lost all. Just think of the 
vast and glorious company over there! Angels, mul- 
titudes of happy people, and God, and Christ, and 
some of your own friends and loved ones who have 
already gone on before, and are now waiting for 
you over there! Pon't you want to go there? 

Americans generally love the name of Marquis De 
LaFayette, because he came to our assistance, with 
money and armies and ships, when our infant States 
were struggling against the tyranny and oppression 
of England. The last time he visited our country, 
our people very properly attempted to give him such 
a welcome, and such entertainment, as would ex- 
press our appreciation of what he had done for the 
U. S. For he came to our relief when the famous 
George Washington was very hard pressed for men, 
and arms, and other munitions of war. As the ves- 
sel on which LaFayette sailed approached our 



HOME 145 

shores, a fleet went out to meet him. A band of 
musicians played "Hail To The Chief," and the na- 
tional airs of France; but he appeared to be un- 
moved. When he stepped on shore, he could plain- 
ly see that both land and sea were vibrating with 
the force and power of the heavy artillery that was 
being fired as a salute. Still his emotions appeared 
untouched. He marched under triumphal arches 
and waving banners, but he was still unmoved. 
Battle scarred veterans of our wars shook hands 
with him, but he was unmoved. He was led to 
Castle Garden, where the greatest men of our nation 
greeted him and expressed sentiments of apprecia- 
tion of his visit, but he was still unmoved. At last, 
he was seated in the great amphitheatre, where spe- 
cial arrangements had been made for his entertain- 
ment. When the curtain arose, he beheld there, be- 
fore his very eyes, an accurate representation of his 
childhood home, the home were he was born, where 
he grew up to manhood, and where his father and 
mother had lived and died. As the sacred tender 
memories of his boyhood home welled up in his 
heart, the great man bowed his head, held his face 
in his hands, and sobbed as though his heart would 
break. If a view of an earthly home can thus stir 
the soul, and arouse the sleeping emotions of our 
nature, what would be the effect if we could get a 
view of the everlasting home, the Heaven of the fu- 
ture eternity? 



146 HOME 

If I could just now push aside the curtain which 
hides Heaven from our sight, so that you could sud- 
denly get a view of the real Heaven as it is, it would 
not be necessary for me or any one else to speak to 
you about Heaven; for you would be stirred with 
an indefinable longing and a yearning to go there. 
The half has never been told of the bliss, and joy, 
and beauty, and gladness, of those who dwell in the 
everlasting home of the redeemed. Loved ones are 
over there. Some of us have fathers and mothers 
over there. Some have children over there. Some 
have brothers and sisters over there. Some have a 
beloved companion over there; while many of us 
also have friends over there. And, best of all, some 
of us have a Savior over there. Oh! friends, don't 
you want to go there? If so, then yield to Christ, 
and accept Him, and confess Him, as your Savior 
and Lord, now. Jesus has said, in Matt. 10:32, 
" Every one, therefore, who shall confess Me before 
men, him will I also confess before My Father Who 
is in Heaven.' ' 

I will now close this part of our service by quoting 
the words of a song written by Harry Loper. The 
sentiment of the song is in full accord with the emo- 
tions of my own heart. 

"We are told of a home in that city above, 

When with life and its cares we are through, 

Where the walls are of jasper, the streets are of gold, 
I want to go there, don't you? 



HOME 147 

CHORUS. 

I want to go there, I want to go there, 

Where loved ones are waiting in that home land 
so fair, 

Where there's never a trial, a sorrow or care, 
I want to go there, don't you? 

2. 

Since here God has called me I'll stand at my post, 

And do what He gives me to do; 
For the thought is refreshing as homeward I look; 

I want to go there, don't you? 

3. 

Soon this brief life is ended, our work is done, 
For the days are so fleeting and few, 

Where our loved ones have gathered no death ever 
comes, 
I want to go there, don't you? 

4. 

There none but the pure shall that city behold, 
'Tis the home of the faithful and true, 

Where the Savior a mansion for me has prepared; 
I expect to go there, don't you?" 

The choir will please sing the song which I have 
just quoted. It is number 47. The congregation 
will please stand during the singing. 



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